

I 


I 









BED TIME STORIES 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


(THE JOLLY BEAVER BOYS) 



By 


HOWARD R. GARIS 




Author of “Sammie and Susie Littletail,” “Johnnie and 
Billie Bushytail,” “Curly and Floppy Twisty- 
tail,” “Uncle Wiggily’s Airship,” “Uncle 
Wiggily’s Adventures,” “Uncle 
Wiggily’s Journey,” Etc. 


ILLUSTRATED BY LOUIS W1SA 


A. L. BURT COMPANY 

Publishers - - New York 


<?y 

V Cx 

THE FAMOUS 
BED TIME STORIES 

Books intended for reading aloud to the Little Folk 
each night. Each volume contains 8 colored illustra- 
tions and 31 stories — one for each night in the month. 
Handsomely bound in cloth. Size 6 V 2 by 8%. 


BED TIME ANIMAL STORIES 
by 

HOWARD R. GARIS 

SAMMIE AND SUSIE LITTLETAIL 

JOHNNIE AND BILLIE BUSHYTAIL 

LULU, ALICE AND JIMMIE WIBBLEWOBBLE 

JACKIE AND PEETIE BOW WOW 

BUDDY AND BRIGHTEYES PIGG 

JOIE, TOMMIE AND KITTIE KAT 

CHARLIE AND ARABELLA CHICK 

NEDDIE AND BECKIE STUBTAIL 

BULLY AND BAWLY NO-TAIL 

NANNIE AND BILLIE WAGTAIL 

JOLLIE AND JILLIE LONGTAIL 

JACKO AND JUMPO KINK YT AIL 

CURLY AND FLOPPY T WIST YT AIL 

TOODLE AND NOODLE FLAT-TAIL 

DOTTIE AND WILLIE LAMBKIN 


UNCLE WIGGILY BED TIME STORIES 

UNCLE WIGGILY’ S' ADVENTURES 
UNCLE WIGGILY’S TRAVELS 
UNCLE WIGGILY’S FORTUNE 
UNCLE WIGGILY’S AUTOMOBILE 
UNCLE WIGGILY AT THE SEASHORE 
UNCLE WIGGILY’S AIRSHIP 
UNCLE WIGGILY IN THE WOODS 
UNCLE WIGGILY ON THE FARM 
UNCLE WIGGILY’S JOURNEY 

For sale at all booksellers, or sent, prepaid, on 
receipt of price by the publishers. 


A. L. BURT COMPANY, 114-120 East 23 Street 

New York City 


Copyright, 1919, by 
R. F. Fenno & Company 


TOODLE AND NOODLE FLAT-TAIL 

JAN 1 7 1920 


7. A 5 5 9 4 2 4 


CONTENTS 


Story Page 

I Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 9 

II Toodle Cuts a Tree 16 

III Noodle Builds a Dam 24 

IV Toodle and Noodle Dig a Canal 31 

V Grandpa Whackum is Caught 38 

VI Toodle Builds a House 45 

VII How Toodle Saved Noodle 53 

VIII Toodle’s and Noodle’s Sister 61 

IX Toodle and Noodle Slide Down 68 

X Toodle and Noodle at School 75 

XI How Crackie Broke the Doll 82 

XII Toodle and Noodle Play Indian 89 

XIII Noodle’s Long Swim 96 

XIV Toodle’s Fire Engine 103 

XV Toodle and Noodle Help Billie 110 

XVI Crackie’s Secret 117 

XVII Toodle and the Big Log 124 

XVIII Toodle and the Trap 131 

XIX Toodle Saves Bully 139 

XX Crackie Goes to School 146 

XXI Toodle and His Roller Skates 153 

XXII Noodle and the Pop Corn 161 

XXIII Toodle and Noodle in Trouble 168 

XXIV Toodle and the Chestnuts 175 

XXV Toodle and Noodle on the Ice 183 

XXVI Toodle and Noodle Play Football 190 

XXVII Crackie and Joie Kat 198 

XXVIII Toodle and Jimmie 206 

XXIX Noodle Helps Uncle Wiggily 214 

XXX Toodle, Noodle and Mrs. Bushytail 220 

XXXI Toodle and the Singing Bird 228 



Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 



STORY I 


TOODLE AND NOODLE FLAT-TAIL 

Once upon a time, not so very many years ago, 
when every one was younger than he is now, but 
when the sun shone just as brightly and the wind 
blew just as sweetly, there lived in a curious little 
house, built right in the middle of a pond of 
water, a family of animals called beavers. They 
looked something like Nurse Jane Fuzzy- 
Wuzzy, the muskrat lady who took care of Uncle 
Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, only 
these beavers were larger than Nurse Jane, and 
they had long, broad, flat tails, which they could 
fold up under themselves and sit on, just like a 
stool. That’s why I have named them “Flat- 
tail,” and I’m going to tell you some stories 
about these beavers, who are really very wonder- 
ful animals. They are covered with soft fur. 

In the Flat-tail family there was, of course. 

Mamma and Papa Flat-tail, and there was also 

dear old Grandpa Whackum. Grandpa had 

such a funny name, not because he was fond of 

whacking the little beavers, but because, when 

there was any danger, the old gentleman beaver 

9 


10 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


would whack or pound his broad, flat tail on the 
ground two or three times. 

That made a sound like a drum, and when- 
ever the other beavers heard it they would rush 
for the pond, dive down in it, swim to the front 
door of their house, the door being under water, 
and, once inside, they would be safe. So that is 
why the oldest beaver of them all was called 
Grandpa Whackum. 

Well, then, to begin on the story — 

Oh, dear me! I beg your pardon. I’m for- 
getting the most important part. Toodle and 
Noodle Flat-tail, to be sure! Toodle and Noodle 
were the two small boy-beavers of the family, 
and without them and the funny things they did, 
and dangers they got into, and out of again, 
there would be verv few stories to tell. Toodle 
wore a spotted suit of clothes, and Noodle one 
that was striped. Now you can tell who is which. 

Now, then, to start all over again. 

Toodle Flat-tail, the little boy-beaver, came 
out of the under-water door of his home one day, 
dived down under the pond, holding his breath 
so the water would not get in his nose, and swam 
to shore. Then he sat up on his broad, flat tail 
and looked back toward his house. 

“I wonder where Noodle is?” spoke Toodle, as 
he turned his head from side to side. “He said 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


11 


he’d come right out and play. What can be 
keeping him?” 

But Noodle, the brother of Toodle, was not in 
sight. 

There were other beaver children, and some 
grown-up ones, to be seen about the pond. Some 
were putting mud-plaster on their houses, others 
were cutting down trees with their four strong, 
orange-colored front teeth, and the nice green 
bark of these trees would be eaten by the beavers 
during the long, cold winter. But Noodle Flat- 
tail was not with the others. 

“I guess he must be playing a trick on me,” 
said Toodle, as he picked up a piece of a birch 
twig in his front paw and began chewing the soft 
bark. A beaver’s front paw, you know, is almost 
like a monkey’s, and he can hold things in it 
almost as well as you can in your hand. His 
hind feet, though, are made for swimming and 
are webbed like a duck’s. 

All of a sudden Toodle felt some one pushing 
him from behind, and before he knew what had 
happened he went kerflop! off the little hill on 
which he was sitting, into the water. 

“Wow!” cried Toodle. “Who did that, I won- 
der? If it was a bad fox, or a lynx, or some 
animal that wants to eat me, I’d better stay un- 
der water, or go back home.” 

But Toodle Flat-tail was a brave little chap 


12 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


and he wanted to see who it was that had pushed 
him into the water. So he swam around a little, 
and then he carefully stuck his nose up, and then 
his eyes, and then, sitting in the same place where 
he had been sitting, he saw his brother Noodle. 
Noodle was laughing as hard as he could laugh. 

“Oh, ho! So it was you who pushed me in, 
eh?” cried Toodle. “Well, I’ll fix you for that!” 

Out of the water he came with a rush and raced 
after Noodle. But Noodle waddled away and 
soon the two little beaver boys were having a 
regular game of tag. 

Finally Toodle caught Noodle and pushed 
him into the water. But do you s’pose Noodle 
minded that? Not a bit of it, for he was more 
at home in the water than on land. In fact 
beavers have to go quite slowly on land, and 
they walk with a waddle like a duck, but in the 
water they can swim so fast that scarcely any- 
thing can catch them. 

Toodle and Noodle splashed each other about 
in the pond, throwing water all over themselves, 
wrestling, playing tag and hide-and-go-seek, and 
when they were tired they climbed out on the 
bank and rested. 

They looked at the other beavers working 
away. Some of the older ones were mending a 
hole in the dam. The beaver dam, you know, is 
just like a time when it rains and the gutter in 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


13 


front of your house fills with water. Then if 
your mamma lets you, you take some sticks and 
stones and mud, and pile it in the gutter so the 
water can’t run down. This is called a dam, and 
it holds back the water, making it deeper back 
of the dam and shallow in front. 

Beavers do the same thing. They build a dam 
across a little brook, so as to make a deep pond, 
for beavers have to have deep water to live in, 
and build their houses in ; and in this pond, back 
of the dam, they also keep their food for the 
winter, big pieces of trees with soft bark on. 
The beaver dam is made of tree trunks and 
branches, sticks, mud, grass, stones — in fact, any- 
thing the beavers can get. When the dam breaks 
all the beavers work together to mend it. 

So Toodle and Noodle watched their papa and 
mamma and the other big beavers folk mend- 
ing the hole in the dam. A bad bear had clawed 
the hole there, hoping that all the water would 
run out of the pond so he could catch and eat 
the beavers. But the bear’s plan did not work, 
I’m glad to say. 

“I hope I didn’t hurt you when I crawled up 
behind you and pushed you in the water,” said 
Noodle to his brother most politely. 

“Oh, no,” said Toddle. “I liked it. First, 
though, I thought it was a fox after me.” 

“Ho! If it had been a fox!” exclaimed 


14 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


Noodle, “I guess you would have heard Grandpa 
Whackum pounding on the ground with his big 
tail to tell us there was danger.” 

“Yes, I guess we would,” said Toodle. “Oh, 
Noodle!” he cried suddenly, “let’s go over where 
those nice, juicy aspen trees grow, and get some 
bark off them. I’m just hungry for an aspen- 
bark ice cream cone.” 

“But papa said we weren’t to go there without 
him,” objected Noodle. “You know he said 
there was an old wolf not far from there, and 
he might get us.” 

“Oh, I don’t believe there is any danger just 
now,” said Toodle. “It’s daylight. Besides, 
Grandpa Whackum can see that far and he’ll 
bang with his tail if there’s any danger. Come 
on!” 

So the two little beaver boys went over to 
where some aspen and willow trees grew, though 
it was not just exactly right. They swam 
through the water and then came out and wad- 
dled over the land. Soon they were in the grove 
of trees. 

“You take a willow tree and I’ll take an 
aspen,” said Toodle, “and after we each cut off 
a nice piece with the juicy bark on we’ll take 
them home and divide them.” 

So, sitting up on their big tails, which were 
like stools to them, the little beaver boys began 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


15 


to gnaw away. A beaver’s gnawing teeth are as 
good to cut with as a carpenter’s chisel. There 
are four gnawing teeth, and the funny part of 
it is that they are colored yellow, like an orange. 

Well, Toodle and Noodle were gnawing away, 
and they had almost cut down two little trees 
when, all of a sudden they heard: 

“Whack! Whack! Thud! Thud!” 

“Hark! What’s that?” cried Toodle. 

“It’s Grandpa Whackum, telling us there’s 
danger!” shouted Noodle. “Run, Toodle! 
Run!” 

Away they ran for the water, and only just 
in time, for the bad old wolf sprang after them. 
But he did not get either of them, for Toodle 
and Noodle slipped into the water just in time 
and swam safely home. 

From where he was working Grandpa 
Whackum had seen the wolf stealing up on the 
two little chaps and had warned them. So the 
wolf didn’t have a beaver dinner that day, and 
Papa Flat-tail made Toodle and Noodle stay 
in the house the rest of the afternoon for not 
minding him. 

But they were not always like that, and so in 
the next story, if the stove poker doesn’t take 
the teakettle out to the moving-picture show, 
I’ll tell you about Toodle Flat-tail cutting down 
a tree. 


STORY II 


TOODLE CUTS A TREE 

“Hey, Toodle, wake up! Wake up!” called 
Noodle Flat-tail, the little beaver boy, to his 
brother one morning. “Wake up! Breakfast is 
ready!” 

Toodle turned over on the bed of white birch 
chips in the beaver house that was built in the 
middle of the pond of water, and said, sleepily: 

“Oh, please let me alone. Noodle. I don’t 
want to open my eyes yet. Let me sleep!” 

“But don’t you know what we’re going to do 
today?” asked Noodle. “Have you forgotten 
what papa said?” 

“Oh, it is a picnic? Are we going on a pic- 
nic?” asked Toodle, and this time he sat up on 
his tail and rubbed the sleepy feeling out of his 
eyes with his handlike paws. 

“No, it isn’t exactly a picnic,” answered 
Noodle, as he combed out his fur with his hind 
claws so as to be nice and neat for breakfast. 
“But papa said he’d show us how to cut down 
a big tree today. Don’t you want to learn how 
to do that?” 

“Indeed I do!” cried Toodle, and he rolled 

16 


Toodle Cuts a Tree 


17 


from his bed in such a hurry that he nearly fell 
out of the front door, which led into the water. 
In that case Toodle would have had a swim be- 
fore breakfast. 

Not that he would have minded that much, 
for, like all beavers, he loved being in the water 
just as much as being on land. In fact, beav- 
ers, when they wear any clothes at all, as they 
have to, in stories of course, wear a kind that 
water cannot hurt — sort of rubber garments, 
vou know. 

“Oh, goodie!” cried Toodle. “That’s what I 
want to do — cut down a tree,” and he opened 
his mouth and felt his four sharp, orange-col- 
ored front teeth that were purposely made for 
gnawing. They were always sharp, too, and 
made in such a way that when they grew dull 
they sharpened themselves. No scissors-grinder 
ever had to come to the beaver colony to sharpen 
their teeth. Nature did that for the queer ani- 
mals. 

“Let’s see who’ll be first at breakfast,” cried 
Noodle, and then he and his brother Washed 
their paws and faces, brushed some dirt off their 
broad, flat tails, combed out their fur until it 
shone like Grandfather Goosey Gander’s silk 
hat, and went into the dining-room, where 
Mamma Flat-tail was getting breakfast for her 


18 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


husband and for Grandpa Whackum, the oldest 
beaver of them all. 

“Good morning, Toodle and Noodle,” said 
their papa, as he helped himself to some willow 
bark pancackes, flavored with water-lily root 
sauce. “You are a little late this morning, and 
if you are going to be working beavers, and learn 
how to cut down trees, you must get around 
earlier than this.” 

“I should say so!” exclaimed Grandpa 
Whackum, as he spread some water-cress but- 
ter on his piece of birch bark bread. “Why, 
when I was a boy I used to get up before break- 
fast every morning, and cut down two or three 
trees. Then I’d float them down the canal to the 
dam we were building.” 

“Well, anyhow, we got up before breakfast,” 
said Toodle, winking at his brother. 

“Yes, but you haven’t chopped even a tooth- 
pick,” laughed their mamma. 

“What’s a canal, Grandpa?” asked Noodle, 
who wanted to learn all he could about beaver 
work. 

“Oh, it’s like a little stream of water, or a 
brook,” said the old gentleman beaver, “only 
it’s deeper, and we have to make it ourselves. 
We cut through the dirt and grass and take out 
the stones, and make a place for the water to 
run from one pond to another. Then we can 


Toodle Cuts a Tree 


19 


float our logs through the canal, just as you 
boys play float your toy ships.” 

“I see,” said Noodle, and he made up his mind 
he would soon dig a canal. 

Well, the two little beaver boys ate their 
breakfast, and then got ready to go with their 
papa who was to give them their first lesson in 
cutting down a tree. Grandpa Whackum, who, 
as I told you before, used to whack on the 
ground with his tail to give warning of danger, 
went along also. 

Mrs. Flat-tail stayed home to do the dishes 
in her kitchen. Of course, not all beaver fam- 
ilies have a house with as many rooms in it as 
the Flat-tails had. But then Mr. and Mrs. 
Flat-tail were quite rich. Most beavers have 
only one room in their house. 

So Mr. Flat-tail, the two boys, Toodle and 
Noodle, and Grandpa Whackum swam out of 
the front door of the water-house and across the 
pond to a little wood where some sweet willow 
trees grew. This was near the place where the 
wolf had nearly caught the two boy beavers the 
day before, as I told you in the first story. But 
now, with their papa and grandpa beavers to 
look after them, Toodle and Noodle were not 
afraid. 

“Now, Toodle,” said Mr. Flat-tail, when they 
had come out of the water and were all waddling 


20 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


along on land, “Fll give you a lesson in tree- 
cutting first. Then I’ll show Noodle. Mean- 
while, Noodle, you can go with Grandpa Whack- 
um and get some fresh aspen bark for dinner.” 

So Grandpa Whackum and Noodle went off 
to another place, while Papa Flat-tail began to 
give Toodle his first lesson. 

“We’ll cut this tree,” said Mr. Flat-tail, as 
he put his paw on one that was about as big 
around as a clothes post in your yard. 

“Oh. I never can cut down such a big tree,” 
said Toodle. “It would take me a week.” 

“Nonsense!” exclaimed Mr. Flat-tail. “You 
don’t know what you can do until you try. Now 
get a good seat on your tail and reach up with 
your four sharp front teeth and bite into the 
tree. Pull off the slivers and chips, and soon 
you will have cut through the trunk and the tree 
will fall.” 

“Gracious!” cried Toodle, “I hope it doesn’t 
fall on me. It’s no fun to have a tree fall on 
you.” 

“Of course not,” laughed Mr. Flat-tail. “But 
that is what you must look out for, Toodle. 
Don’t let the tree fall on you, or on any one else. 
And when you see that it is just ready to topple 
over, whack on the ground with your tail, just 
as your grandpa does. That will tell every one 
else around you to get out of the way. An an- 


Toodle Cuts a Tree 


21 


other thing. Always pick out a tree that won’t 
fall on top of another and get all tangled up, so 
it can’t be moved.” 

“Will this tree do that?” asked Toodle, look- 
ing up into the top of the tree his papa wanted 
him to cut down. 

“No,” said Mr. Flat-tail, “it will not. Begin 
now, Toodle. This tree will fall just right.” 

Toodle thought he could never cut down such 
a large tree, but then he was a brave little beaver 
boy, and he was not going to give up without 
trying. So, sitting on his big, thick, broad tail, 
which, as I have told you is like a stool, he began. 
Into the soft wood he sank his sharp orange- 
colored front teeth, and soon the bark and chips 
began to fly, just as they do when a woodman 
cuts a log. 

Mr. Flat-tail saw that his little son was learn- 
ing his lesson well, so he said: 

“Now, Toodle, I’ll go over here and cut down 
a large tree by myself. But don’t forget what 
I told you about whacking your tail on the 
ground just before your tree falls.” 

“I won’t,” promised Toodle. 

Well, he was cutting and cutting away with 
his teeth, and then he began to think what fun 
he and his brother would have that afternoon, 
playing water-tag. 

And Toodle was thinking so much about the 


22 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


fun that he forgot all about what his papa had 
told him. All of a sudden he heard a sound he 
knew well. 

“Whack! Whack! Thud! Thud! 5 ’ echoed 
through the woods. 

“That’s Grandpa Whackum!” exclaimed 
Toodle. “Good gracious sakes alive! There 
must be some danger. I must run!” 

Poor Toodle started to run, but alas he was 
not quick enough. Down crashed the tree he 
had been cutting, and one limb struck him on 
the back, pinning him fast to the ground. Poor 
Toodle could not move. It was just as though 
he had been caught in a trap. 

“Oh, dear!” he cried. “Oh, dear! My tree 
fell on me!” 

And had it not been that Grandpa Whackum 
and Papa Flat-tail were there in the woods 
Toodle might never have gotten loose. But the 
two old beaver gentlemen soon came up and 
gnawed through the tree branches so Toodle 
could get up. His brother Noodle helped, too. 

“Why didn’t you watch out to see when your 
tree was going to fall?” asked Papa Flat-tail 
when they were on their way home again. 

“I — I forgot,” said Toodle, sort of ashamed- 
like. 

“Well, if I hadn’t seen it falling, and whacked 
on the ground with my tail,” said his grandpa. 


Toodle Cuts a Tree 


23 


“you might have been killed. Be more careful 
after this.” 

Toodle said he would, and he was quite proud 
after all that he had cut down a tree all by him- 
self. Then they all swam home. 

And on the next page, if the shoe horn doesn’t 
blow so loudly that it wakes up the rubber doll 
in the puppy dog’s hammock, I’ll tell you about 
Noodle building a dam. 


STORY III 


NOODLE BUILDS A DAM 

Toodle Flat-tail, the little beaver boy, was so 
lame and sore from having been caught under 
the tree he was gnawing down, as I told you in 
the story before this, that the day afterward he 
could not leave the house in the pond to go out 
and play. 

“Cutting down trees is more dangerous than 
I thought it was,” said Toodle when Dr. Pos- 
sum came to put some sassafras liniment on his 
sore places. 

“Indeed it is,” said Dr. Possum. “I can climb 
trees very well, and hang on by my tail, but I 
never tried cutting one down. I don’t believe I 
could do it. Though often I have heard of hunt- 
ers, who when they are after friends of mine, 
cut down trees to get them out.” 

“How dreadful!” exclaimed Mrs. Flat-tail 
who was baking some apple-bread for dinner. 
“But, Dr. Possum, do you think Toodle will 
have to stay in the house long?” 

“Well, maybe two or three days more,” said 
the old gentleman doctor. 

“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Mrs. Flat-tail, the 

24 


Noodle Builds a Dam 


25 


beaver lady. “Boys are so troublesome when 
they are in the house !” 

And I guess this is so. Anyhow Noodle, who 
was the brother of Toodle, stayed in to play 
with him, and the two of them frisked around 
and got up all sorts of games, and nearly upset 
the piano and did all things like that. At least 
Noodle did, for Toodle was too sore and stiff to 
do much. But Noodle was trying to amuse his 
sick brother you see, and really he did not mean 
to make trouble. 

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” said Dr. Possum, 
as he closed up his birch-bark satchel filled with 
all sorts of colored medicines. “On my way 
back home I’ll stop and tell Nurse Jane Fuzzy- 
Wuzzy, the muskrat lady, to come over and take 
care of Toodle. Then Noodle can go out and 
play, and your house will be quiet, Mrs. Flat- 
tail.” 

“Oh, that will be fine!” exclaimed the beaver 
lady, and Toodle said the same thing. 

Noodle said he would be very glad to go out 
and play, for though he did not much mind stay- 
ing in the house to amuse his brother, still he 
would much rather have gone out, to swim 
around in the pond, play on top of the big dam, 
that made the beaver pond, or even cut down a 
little tree so he could gnaw the green, sweet bark. 

So Nurse Jane Fuzzy- Wuzzy came from Un- 


26 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


cle Wiggily’s hollow stump bungalow, and she 
read stories to Toodle and told him how she 
could swim under water, almost as well as the 
beavers could, and how she could make a fiddle 
out of a cornstalk and play a tune on it. And 
she did, and it was such a nice, sleepy sort of 
tune, all about going to by-low land, that, before 
he knew it, Toodle was fast, fast asleep, and the 
house was quiet. 

But what happened to Noodle? Ah, ha! We 
must find out about that before we go much 
further. For Noodle had made up his mind to 
do something, and when he did that something 
almost always happened. 

As Noodle did not have to stay in the house 
any more to play with his little sick brother, he 
dived down through the front door, which was 
under water, so no bad animals could get in, and 
out the little beaver boy swam into the pond. 
This pond was made by a big dam being built 
across the lower end, to keep the water from 
running away, as I have told you, and in this 
pond were many beaver houses, built of sticks, 
mud, grass, stones and pieces of trees. 

On the dam, which was wide enough on the 
top for several beavers to walk, there were a 
number of the animal folk talking, laughing and 
doing different things. 

Some were gnawing pieces of tender bark, 


Noodle Builds a Dam 


27 


which they had stripped off the aspen or wil- 
low trees. Others were carrying in their front 
paws mud or sticks to mend holes in the roofs 
of their houses. Some beaver children were 
playing tag and pushing each other into the 
water. 

“I wish I could make a dam,” thought Noodle. 
“I would like to make a little one and have a 
pond of water all to myself. Then I’d build a 
house in it, and when Toodle gets well he and I 
can have lots of fun in it. I think that’s what 
I’ll do. I’ll build a dam and have a toy beaver 
pond just for us boys.” 

The more Noodle thought of this the better 
he liked it, so he swam off up the big pond until 
he came to a place in the woods where a little 
brook ran along over the green stones, singing 
a pretty song all to itself. 

“Here is where I will make my dam,” said 
Noodle. 

He remembered how his papa had told him 
to do it — to cut down little trees, pile them 
across the brook, then how to pile sticks and 
stones and mud and grass against the trees until 
the water could not trickle through. Then it 
would stop running and there would be a pond, 
just as the children make one in the gutter after 
a rain storm. 

Noodle was soon a very busy little beaver 


28 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


boy. But he was careful only to gnaw down 
small trees, so that even if they fell on him be- 
fore he could get out of the way he would not 
be caught or hurt, as his brother had been. 
Soon he had quite a pile of wood, and then, pull- 
ing it in his strong teeth or paws, he piled it 
across the brook. Then he carried sticks and 
stones and grass until he had made a line little 
dam. 

Of course it wasn’t as large as the big dam, 
nor made so well, but really it was quite good 
for a small beaver boy, and Noodle was quite 
proud of it. The water back of the dam got 
deeper, and soon there was enough of it for 
Noodle to swim in. And how he could sw T im! 

He could dive, and float on his back, and 
stay under water so long that it is a wonder 
how he could hold his breath. With his strong 
hind paws, and sometimes by using his tail like 
the propeller on a steamboat, Noodle went back 

and forth across the pond he had made by 
building the dam. 

“Now I’ll begin the play-house,” thought the 
little beaver boy. “I can’t finish it today, but 
when Toodle gets well he can help me.” 

So Noodle began. He gathered a lot of 
sticks and pushed them down in the mud of his 
pond. Then he got more and arranged them 
around in a pile, plastering them with mud he 


Noodle Builds a Dam 


29 


dug up from the bottom, under the water. This 
mud he carried in his front paws, walking on 
his hind ones like a bear in the circus. 

Soon the play-house began to look almost 
like the real ones beavers make. And while 
Noodle was taking a rest and glancing from 
side to side to see that there was no danger, all 
of a sudden, out from the woods sprang a bad 
old fox. He made a run for Noodle, and ahnost 
caught him, but the little beaver boy, thudding 
on the ground with his tail, to warn others who 
might be near of the danger, gave a jump into 
the water and dived down under it. 

‘Til fool that fox!” thought Noodle. “I’ll 
just swim along and stay under water until he 
goes away.” 

So he stayed under, but after a while he 
wanted to get some air to breathe, and of course 
he had to come up. And, as it happened, he 
came up near shore where the fox was waiting 
for him. 

“Ah ha! I have you!” cried the fox, and he 
made a grab for Noodle. But Noodle dived 
under w T ater again. The fox didn’t dare go in 
water, you know, for he couldn’t swim as well 
as Noodle. 

“I fooled him again,” thought the little beaver 
boy. “I guess he must be gone by this time, 
and I can come out.” Noodle had to come up 


30 


Toodle and Noodle Flat- Tail 


for another breath of air, but no sooner was his 
nose out of the water than the fox, who had 
been watching, made another grab for him, and 
Noodle only got a sniff of air. 

“No you don’t get me!” cried Noodle, and 
down he went again. But he was getting tired, 
and out of breath, and I don’t know what would 
have happened if Grandpa Whackum, the old 
gentleman beaver, hadn’t come along just then. 
He saw what the trouble was, and the danger 
Noodle was in. So Grandpa Whackum gath- 
ered up a big ball of mud on the end of his tail, 
and, when that fox was making another grab 
for Noodle, Grandpa Whackum threw the mud 
in the eyes of the fox. 

“Oh, wow!” cried the fox, and then he couldn’t 
see (not even with his glasses on) to bite Noodle, 
so the little beaver boy got safely away, and so 
did Grandpa Whackum, and all the fox had to 
eat that day was peanut shells. But it served 
him right, I think. 

So that’s how Noodle built a dam, and what 
happened afterward, and next, in case the man 
in the moon doesn’t come down and take my 
straw hat to play ball with, I’ll tell you about 
Toodle and Noodle in the canal. 


STORY IV 


TOODLE AND NOODLE DIG A CANAL 

"Come, boys,” said Mrs. Flat-tail to Toodle 
and Noodle, the little beaver chaps, one morning 

when they were swimming around the house in 
the pond, playing tag; “come boys, I want you 
to go to the store for me.” 

Mrs. Flat-tail, the beaver lady, had swam out 
of the front door of her house, and was sitting 
up on the roof, looking to see if there were any 
holes there where the snow might come in dur- 
ing the winter. She saw a small one, and made 
up her mind that her husband or Grandpa 
Whackum, would have to plaster that hole up 
with mud before cold weather set in. 

“What do you want from the store, mamma?” 
asked Toodle, as he dived down under the water, 
and began swimming toward his brother, who 
had his back turned. Toodle was going to 
tickle the other little beaver boy, and make be- 
lieve it was a water snake that had done it. 

“Well, if you’ll keep still long enough for me 

to tell you what I want, I’ll do so, and give you 

the green-leaf money to get it,” said Mrs. Flat- 

31 


32 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


tail, laughing, for she loved to see her two boys 
play in the water. 

Up came Toodle from the bottom of the pond, 
where he had dived — up he shot, right under 
Noodle, and he upset Noodle, who went top- 
pling head over tail, and then the two beaver 
boys splashed around in the water and had a lot 
of fun. Oh, it’s great to be a beaver, I tell you! 

“Well, are you done playing?” asked Mrs. 
Flat-tail, after a while. “If you are I’d like to 
have you get me some cat-tail flour and some 
candied cocoanut from the store. I’m going to 
make a cake!” 

“Oh, goodie!” cried Noodle. “I’m going to 
carry the cocoanut!” 

“No, I am!” said his brother. “You might 
eat some on the way home.” 

“Huh! You mean you would yourself,” cried 
Noodle. 

“Well,” said their mamma, “I’ll give you a 
basket with a water-proof rubber cloth on it, so 
you can dive down under the water with the 
things in it if you have to, and then you won’t 
get them wet. So you may each carry half the 
basket with the cocoanut in it.” 

Toodle and Noodle thought this a good plan, 
and soon they were swimming on toward the 
store, which was kept by a nice old water rat, 
and the store was in an old rowboat that no one 


Toodle and Noodle Dig a Canal 33 


wanted any more. Mr. Rat had stuffed up the 
holes in it with cheese, and it did very well for 
a grocery. 

There were two troubles with it, however. 
One was that often Mr. Rat got hungry and 
then he would graw some of the cheese out of the 
holes. That would make the boat leak, and the 
grocery store got wet. The other trouble, which 
was almost quite as bad, was that the boat 
would float away all over the beaver pond, 
and when you started out to find it you could 
never tell just where it was going to be, whether 
at one end of the pond or the other. So going 
to the store was not as easy as might seem, but 
still no one minded much. 

But this time Noodle and Toodle were quite 
lucky. They soon found the floating boat store, 
and bought what their mamma had sent them 
for, putting the things in the basket and cover- 
ing them up with the water-proof cloth so as to 
keep them dry. 

“Now let’s see how quickly we can go home,” 
said Noodle. 

“All right,” agreed Toodle. “The sooner we 
get home the quicker mamma can bake the cake 
and — ” Then he stopped and laughed. So did 
Noodle. 

“I know what you’re thinking of,” said 
Toodle, blinking his eyes. 


34 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


“What?” asked Noodle. 

“You’re thinking that maybe we’ll get some 
of the cake/’ spoke his brother, and truly, that 
was right. Oh, those beaver boys were just like 
you real children! Indeed they were. 

So, carrying the basket, with the candy cocoa- 
nut for the cake, between them, Toodle and 
Noodle swam away from Mr. Rat’s floating 
boat store. Then they had to get out on dry 
land, for this pond did not go all the way to the 
pond where the Flat-tail house was built. 

“Now we must be very careful,” said Toodle, 
as he and his brother crawled out on shore. 
“Look carefully around for danger. Noodle, for 
you know we can’t go as fast on the land as we 
can in the water, and something may catch us. 
So if you see a fox, or a wolf, or a bear, bang 
your tail on the ground as Grandpa Whackum 
does, and we’ll both run.” 

Of course, Noodle said he would, but for 
some time the two little beaver boys went on 
together and saw nothing to alarm them. Then, 
all at once, when they were almost to the pond 
where they lived, and were ready to plunge in 
it and swim home, they saw a big, savage lynx 
on the path ahead of them. A lynx is like a 
wolf, only worse, and he has sofa-cushion tassles 
on the tips of his ears, so you can always tell him 
when you see him. In a picture, I mean, not 


Toodle and Noodle Dig a Canal 35 


real. I wouldn’t want you to meet a real lynx. 

“Oh, the lynx!” whispered Noodle. “He’ll 
get us sure if we don’t look out! Let’s go back 
to Mr. Rat’s pond.” 

“No, wait until I bang the ground with my 
tail,” said Toodle. “Maybe papa or Grandpa 
Whackum will hear it and come to help us.” 

“No, don’t make a noise with your tail now,” 
said Noodle, “or the lynx will hear it and come 
for us.” 

“Then let’s run,” suggested Toodle. “We’ll 
go back to the other pond.” 

“I’m afraid if we do that the lynx will see us, 
and chase after us,” spoke Noodle. “Oh, dear!” 

“Then what can we do?” asked his brother in 
a whisper. 

“Dig a canal,” was the answer. “Listen! 
We are not far from our own pond. If we can 
dig a canal from here to there we can walk down 
in it, for it will be like a ditch without any 
water in it, and the lynx won’t see us. Then 
we can run along and when we get to our pond 
we can easily swim home.” 

“That’s what we’ll do!” cried the other beaver. 
So keeping down low in the grass, where the 
lynx would not see them, they began digging a 
ditch. With their strong claws Toodle and 
Noodle could easily do this, for they had often 
watched the older beavers doing it. They 


36 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


wished there was water at the place where they 
had begun to dig, for that would have made it 
easier for them, but it could not be helped. 
They hid the grocery basket under a bush in the 
grass as they began to dig. 

My! how the dirt did fly! The two little 
beaver boys worked very hard, for they wanted 
to get away from that lynx. As for that bad 
animal, there he lay in the sun, just wishing 
some fat beaver, or some other poor chap, would 
come along to be eaten. 

Pretty soon Toodle said: 

“I think we’re near our pond now, Noodle.” 

“I think so, too,” whispered Noodle. “Soon 
the water will rush into our canal and we will 
be safe. Then we can tell papa and he’ll get 
the basket of groceries.” 

The beaver boys dug a little more and then, 
all of a sudden, with a rush, the canal filled with 
water, and Toodle and Noodle were swimming. 
This was just what they wanted. 

Then something happened. All at once a lot 
of beavers came paddling down the new canal 
Toodle and Noodle had made, and among them 
was Grandpa Whackum. 

“Oh, ho!” cried the old gentleman beaver. 
“Look here! What’s this? Who dug this 
canal?” 

“We did,” answered Toodle proudly. “Noo- 


Toodle and Noodle Dig a Canal 


37 


die and I dug it to get away from the lynx. 
Isn’t it a good one?” 

“The canal is all right,” said Grandpa 
Whackum, with a laugh, as he splashed water 
with his broad tail, “but you made your canal 
so low down that all the water is runnipg out 
of our pond into it. We will have no water 
left if we don’t stop up your canal, boys. Hurry, 
friends!” cried Grandpa Whackum to the other 
beavers. “Make a dam across the boys’ canal 
and that will keep the water in our pond. It 
won’t all run out then.” 

So the beavers did this, bringing mud and 
sticks and grass for a dam, and soon the canal 
was dry again, and the beaver pond stopped run- 
ning out. Then the big beavers stole softly up 
to where that lynx was and they threw stones 
at him until he was glad enough to run home. 

Then Grandpa Whackum got the basket of 
cocoanut and flour which Toodle and Noodle 
had hid in the grass and brought it home, so 
Mrs. Flat-tail could make a cake. She did, and 
the two beaver boys each had a large piece. 

So that’s all now, but in case the baker man 
doesn’t let his cake of ice roll over our lawn and 
spoil the watering can, I’ll tell you next about 
Grandpa Whackum being caught. 


STORY V 


GRANDPA WHACKUM IS CAUGHT 

“Come, boys!” called Grandpa Whackum, 
the old gentleman beaver, to Toodle and Noodle, 
the little beaver boys, as they awoke one morn- 
ing in their mud and stick house in the pond. 
“We must be off early today for we have a 
great deal to do.” 

“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Toodle. “I was going 
to play ball with Bully No-tail, the green frog, 
this morning.” 

“And I was going to play tag on the flat 
lily pad leaves with Bawly, his brother,” spoke 
Noodle. “What do we have to do, grandpa?” 

“I am going to show you how to dig a canal,” 
answered the old gentleman beaver. 

Toodle looked at Noodle, and Noodle looked 
at Toodle. Then they both looked sort of 
ashamed-like. 

“Do you mean a canal like the one we dug 
the other day, when we wanted to get away 
from the bad lynx?” asked Noodle, brushing a 
mosquito off his ear. 

“No,” answered Grandpa Whackum with a 

laugh, as he got up from where he was sitting 

38 


Grandpa Whackum is Caught 


39 


on his tail. “You dug that canal all right, only 
you didn’t look where it was going to end, and 
you nearly let all the water from our pond run 
away through it. No, I’ll show you how to 
make a canal just right.” 

You remember I told you how, when Toodle 
and Noodle went to the store for their mamma, 
they had to dig a canal to get away from a bad 
animal. 

“Well, I guess then we’d better go with you,” 
said Toodle, “for we must learn how to make 
canals in the right way. Sometimes we might 
want to get away from a bear by swimming in 
one of them.” 

“That’s so,” agreed Noodle. So he and his 
brother gave up the idea of playing ball or tag, 
and off they set with their grandpa, who was 
the oldest beaver in all the beaver colony, or 
city, and the wisest and strongest. 

“You’ll have plenty of time to play after you 
practice your canal-digging lesson,” went on the 
old gentleman. “Come along, we’re going over 
to the aspen tree grove.” 

“Hadn’t we better take along some sand- 
wiches, or maybe an ice cream cone to eat,” sug- 
gested Toodle. “We’ve just had our breakfast, 
I know,” he added as he saw his mamma look- 
ing at him, “but we may be gone a long while.” 

“Oh, there will be plenty to eat where we are 


40 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


going boys/’ said Grandpa Whackum, with a 
laugh and a whistle through his big, orange- 
colored front teeth. “There are sweet aspen 
trees there, and willows with nice, thick, juicy 
bark — indeed, you’ll not get hungry, even though 
you don’t have an ice cream cone. Come along.” 

So off the old gentleman beaver went, with 
Toodle and Noodle frisking on ahead. Mr. 
Flat-tail, their papa, stayed home to plaster with 
mud a hole his wife had found on the roof of the 
house in the pond. It would never do to have 
a hole there, for a bad water rat might easily 
scratch it larger, and some night, when Toodle 
and Noodle were asleep he might sneak in and 
bite them. No, indeed! 

As Grandpa Whackum and the two boys 
swam along the pond, and then went out on 
dry land to waddle for a short distance, Toodle 
suddenly exclaimed: 

“Why, I know where this is!” 

“Where?” asked his brother Noodle. 

“It’s the same place where I had my first 
lesson in cutting down a tree!” cried the little 
beaver boy. “That time I was caught under it, 
you know.” 

“Oh, yes!” exclaimed Noodle. “Is that where 
we are going, Grandpa Whackum?” 

“The very place,” said the old beaver gentle- 
man, as he kindly stopped to allow a toad that 


Grandpa Whackuni is Caught 


41 


accidentally sat on his tail to hop off. “And, 
boys, we are going to dig a canal so we can float 
down through it, on the water that will run in, 
the very tree Toodle cut down. That tree is 
good to eat, Toodle, my boy,” went on Grandpa 
Whackuni, “and it will be very good this winter.” 

“Oh, fine!” cried Todle, and he was very glad 
that he could be of some use to the other beavers, 
even if it was only in cutting down one tree for 
use as food. 

“I wish I could cut down a tree!” exclaimed 
Noodle. 

“Well, you can soon,” promised his grandpa. 
“But now I need you both to help dig the canal. 
We will soon begin. Here is a little brook that 
runs into our pond. Now if we dig a sort of 
ditch from this brook to where Toodle’s tree is, 
we can float it right to our house, and that’s 
what we’ll do.” 

Soon the work of digging the canal was 
started. The old gentleman beaver and Toodle 
and Noodle used their sharp claws to loosen the 
earth. Then they would carry it off to one side, 
either holding it in their front paws, which were 
like hands, or by taking a lot of it on their tail, 
and holding their tail close to their body so the 
dirt would not slip off. In this way they soon 
had quite a ditch dug, and when the water from 
the litttle brook ran in it would be a canal. 


42 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


“You boys are doing very well,” said Grandpa 
Whackum, after a bit. “I think I will leave 
you for a little while and go off in the wood to 
see if there are any more good trees to cut down 
for winter. If there are I’ll show Noodle, to- 
morrow, how to cut them. While I’m gone you 
boys can finish the canal.” 

So Grandpa Whackum, washing the mud 
from his tail, went off in the aspen grove, and 
Toodle and Noodle worked harder than ever on 
the canal. Soon it was dug all the way to where 
lay the tree Toodle had cut down. 

“Now let’s rest,” suggested Noodle. “When 
Grandpa comes back he’ll show us how to cut 
down the little wall of dirt that is between the 
brook and our canal, and that will let in the 
water. Then we can float the tree home.” 

“And while we’re waiting let’s eat,” sug- 
gested his brother. So they gnawed off some 
sweet willow bark, which is as good to them as 
are lollypops or popcorn candies to you children. 

Toodle and Noodle were just finishing their 
little bark lunch, when, all of a sudden, thev 
heard a voice calling: 

“Help! Help! Help!” 

“Hark! Who’s that?” asked Toodle. 

Then they heard a whistle and the sound: 

“Whack! Whack! Thud-ud-dud !” 


Grandpa Whackum is Caught 43 


“That’s Grandpa Whackum!” cried Noodle. 
“He must be in trouble!” 

“Help! Oh, boys, come and help me!” they 
heard the old beaver gentleman calling. “I’m 
caught in a trap!” 

Toodle and Noodle rushed as fast as they 
could toward where they heard the sounds. All 
the while the old beaver gentleman was thump- 
ing his flat tail on the ground, to tell his little 
grandsons how to reach him. 

Pretty soon they came to where he was, and 
there poor Grandpa Whackum stood, caught 
fast by his hind leg in a wooden trap. 

“Oh, boys!” he cried. “Hurry and get me 
out! I was walking along, looking up at the 
trees to make sure which were the best to cut, 
when I stepped into this trap. It has snapped 
shut on my paw, and I can’t turn around to 
gnaw myself loose! Can you do it for me?” 

“Of course we can!” cried Toodle bravely. 

“Right away, quick!” cried Noodle. 

Then with their orange-colored front teeth 
those beaver boys gnawed and gnawed on the 
wooden trap until they had gnawed it all to 
pieces and their grandpa could come out. He 
was not much hurt, I’m glad to say. And the 
hunter who set the trap, thinking to catch a 
beaver, was much disappointed that night, I 
guess. 


44 


Toodle and Noodle Flat- Tail 


“It was very foolish of me not to look where 
I was going,” said Grandpa Whackum, a few 
days later as lie rubbed some witch hazel leaves 
on his sore paw, which was nearly well now. 
“I’ll never get caught again, and I hope you 
boys will not, either. How is the canal coming 
on?” 

“It is all done,” said Toodle. 

“Good!” cried Grandpa Whackum. Then 
he went with the two beaver boys to where they 
had dug. With a few strokes of his strong 
claws the old gentleman soon tore down the last 
bit of the earth, and that let the water into the 
canal. It was filled very shortly, and then the 
three beavers rolled into it the tree which Toodle 
had cut down. 

“Now, sit on the log,” said Grandpa 
Whackum. “Hold up your broad, flat tails for 
sails and we’ll ride home.” And they did, as 
nicely as you please, and every one was glad to 
see them. 

So that’s how Toodle and Noodle dug a 
canal and how Grandpa Whackum was caught 
and got out again. And on the next page, if I 
don’t lose all my money, so I have to walk down 
town instead of going on my roller skates. I’ll 
tell you about Toodle making a house. 


STORY VI 


TOODLE BUILDS A HOUSE 

“Hurray!” cried Noodle Flat-tail, the little 
beaver boy, as he hopped out of his clean shav- 
ings bed one morning, and tickled his brother 
Toodle with a turkey feather. “Hurray! no 
school today!” 

“That’s so,” spoke Toodle, rubbing the sleepy 
feeling from his eyes so he could look out of the 
window and see if the sun was up yet. As it 
was quite high in the sky, it shone, making the 
beaver pond sparkle like silver. 

Most beaver houses have no windows, and 
they are all dark inside, but the one where 
Toodle and Noodle lived had several windows 
in it, for Mr. Flat-tail was a very rich beaver. 

Besides there was Grandpa Whackum, the 
oldest beaver of them all, and he helped make 
the windows. So if some of you children have 
seen real beaver houses, and have never noticed 
the windows, don’t say they never have any. 
Because this Flat-tail family of beavers was dif- 
ferent from those you may know. 

“Well, I guess we may as well get up,” said 
Toodle, when he saw how high the sun was. 


46 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


“And I’m glad it’s Saturday, so we don’t have 
to go to school.” 

I believe I forgot to tell you that Toodle and 
Noodle went to school just the same as any ani- 
mal children do, and later on in these stories I’m 
going to tell you some of the things they did 
there. 

“Yes, we can have a lot of fun,” spoke Noodle. 
“Bully No-tail, the frog, is going to have a ball 
game, with the broad lily pad leaves for bases, 
and you and I can play.” 

“Good!” cried Toodle. 

So the two little beaver boys hurried down to 
their breakfast of willow-bark oatmeal with 
frizzled watercress pancakes, and soon they had 
dived down through the water, in their rubber 
cloth suits, out of the front door, and across the 
pond they swam. 

Down on the beaver dam, which was built to 
keep the water from running out of the pond 
where the animal folk lived, were a number of 
the grown-up beavers, and they were very busy. 
They were bringing mud and sticks and stones 
and grass in their paws, and putting it in a pile 
near where Grandpa Whackum stood on his 
hind legs sitting on his tail for a stool. 

“That’s right!” the old gentleman beaver was 
saying. “Hurry now, everybody, bring a lot of 


Toodle Builds a House 


47 


mud and plaster it over the hole. Hurry, every- 
body !” 

“What’s the matter?” asked Noodle. “Is 
there a fire?” 

“No, but in the night a bad bear tore a hole 
in our dam, to let all the water out of our pond, 
so he could tear open our houses and get us,” 
said a policeman beaver, who was sitting on top 
of the police station, looking out for danger. 
And when he saw any he was 
his tail on the water, making a noise like a fire- 
cracker. When the other beavers heard this 
they would all run and hide. 

“A bear; eh?” exclaimed Toodle. “Wow!” 

“Yes, and you boys must be careful where you 
play today,” said Grandpa Whackum, as he 
showed the other beavers how to mend the hole 
the bear had torn in the dam. “I can’t be with 
you to look out for danger.” 

“Oh, we’ll be careful,” said Noodle, sort of 
easy-like, as all boys are. 

They watched the mending of the dam for a 
little while, and then they went on to play ball 
with Bully, the frog, Jimmie Wibble wobble, the 
duck, and some other of their animal friends. 

Well, this story isn’t about the ball game, 
though I will tell you one like that some time. 
But now I must relate what happened when 
Toodle built his playhouse. So I’ll just say that 


ready to whack 


48 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


there was lots of fun at the ball game, and that 
Noodle’s side won. 

Soon after that Noodle had to go to the store 
for his mamma, and as Toodle did not want to 
go along he stayed home. 

“But I would like to have some fun,” said this 
little beaver boy to himself, “so I guess I’ll build 
a playhouse. Then, when Noodle comes back 
it will be a surprise to him and he and I can stay 
in it, and play soldier, and Indians, and all 
things like that.” 

So Toodle began to build his house. Perhaps 
if Grandpa Whackum, or his papa, or some of 
the older beavers had seen him they might not 
have let Toodle do this, for he started his house 
away off at one end of the pond, near the wood 
where the bears and wolves lived. 

“But if we are going to play Indian in our 
house,” said Toodle to himself, “we don’t want 
it too near the other houses. The people will 
make a fuss if we yell and holler.” 

So off he went by himself, while all the grown 
beavers were mending the hole the bear had torn 
in the dam. Other boy and girl beavers were 
playing around, some swimming, some sliding 
down slippery, muddy banks, that were just like 
coasting-hills, and some girl beavers were play- 
ing with their dolls, which were made out of 
pieces of wood. 


Toodle Builds a House 


49 


Toodle had watched other beavers making 
houses, some of them very large, so he thought 
he knew how to do it. But he only wanted a 
small playhouse. He gathered a lot of sticks, 
and then, diving down to the bottom of the pond, 
and holding his breath, he scooped up a little pile 
of mud and grass roots. This was the bottom 
part of his house. On top of this he laid sticks, 
and more sticks, until his house was above the 
water. Then he brought still more sticks and 
mud and grass roots up from the bottom of the 
pond. 

Toodle then piled some long poles up slant- 
ing, just as you might take a lot of bean poles 
and stand them up in a circle in the garden, to 
make an Indian tent. Toodle did this, and then 
he spread mud all over the outside, and when 
this had partly dried in the sun, there he had a 
nice little house. 

“Won’t Noodle be surprised when he sees 
this!” cried the little beaver boy. 

If you had been there you could not have seen 
any door to the queer house, but there was one 
just the same. The entrance to it was under 
water, and when he wanted to go in Toodle had 
to dive down below the water and swim up along 
a dark front hall to get into his house. It was 
safer that way, as no other animal dared come 
in. 


50 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


Well, the little beaver boy finished his house, 
and then he began to wish for his brother to 
come along so they could have a good time. 
Toodle was sitting on the roof, putting some 
mud plasters on a few holes he saw, when all of 
a sudden, there was a swirl in the water, and 
along came the bad old skillery-scalery alligator 
with the double- jointed tail. He swam straight 
for Toodle, crying: 

“Ah, ha! This is the time I have you ! Wuff!” 

“No, you haven’t!” cried the little beaver boy, 
and with that he gave a dive off the roof of his 
playhouse into the water, and swimming with his 
paws and his broad, flat tail, he soon had found 
his front door. The next minute he was up in- 
side his house. 

“Now you can’t get me!” he cried through the 
sides to the skillery-scalery alligator. 

“I can’t, eh? You just watch me!” cried the 
bad old ’gator. 

With that he began to scratch and claw, and 
to claw and to scratch at Toodle’s house, scat- 
tering all over the sticks and the mud, that was 
not yet hard and dry. 

“Oh, dear!” thought the little beaver boy. “I 
shouldn’t have come in here. When I was in the 
water I should have swum home; for I can go 
faster in the pond than that ’gator can. Now 
he’ll get me sure! And I don’t dare go out now. 


Toodle Builds a House 


51 


or he’ll grab me. Oh, dear! I wish I’d made 
my house nearer the dam, where Grandpa 
Whackum is. He’d save me.” 

Well, the ’gator went on clawing away at 
Toodle ’s nice little house, and he had it almost 
clawed apart, and was going to reach in and 
grab Toodle, when, all of a sudden, Noodle, who 
had come back from the store, came swimming 
along, looking for his brother. 

'‘Help! Help! Oh, will no one help me?” 
cried poor Toodle in his little playhouse. 

“Yes, I will!” said Noodle. He had with him 
two ice cream cones, one for himself and one for 
Toodle, and they were full, and heavy with ice 
cream. But Noodle knew there was but one 
thing to do. First he threw one cone at the bad 
’gator, and the sharp point stuck in one eye. 
Then Noodle threw the other cone, and the sharp 
point of that stuck in the ’gator’s other eye. 
Then the ’gator couldn’t see to scratch or claw 
Toodle’s house any more, and he couldn’t see to 
grab the little beaver boy, who easily swam out 
and got safely away with his brother. 

Of course, the ice cream cones were lost, for 
the ’gator took them away with him, and had to 
go to a dentist to have them pulled out of his 
eyes. But, anyhow, Toodle was saved by Noo- 
dle, whom he thanked very much. And Toodle 


52 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


never built a house so far away from the dam 
again. 

So this is all now, but on the page after this, 
if it happens that the butterfly spreads some 
honey on a cracker for the rag doll to eat. I’ll 
tell you about Toodle saving Noodle. 






























V ■" ■ 

■v . . * 


r v -"v . . 

■ 




















STORY VII 


HOW TOODLE SAVED NOODLE 

Toodle and Noodle Flat-tail, the two little 
beaver boys, sat on top of the big dam, that 
kept the water in the pond from flowing all 
away, as the water does in your gutter on a 
rainy day, unless you make a pile of mud and 
sticks to hold it back. Toodle was gnawing a 
bit of sweet bark from an aspen tree, and Noo- 
dle was making a whistle out of a bit of willow 
wood. 

“Well,” said Noodle after a while, when he 
had blown on the whistle, making a noise like 
a toy choo-choo engine, “is this all we’re going 
to do today, Toodle?” 

“Oh, I don’t know,” answered Toodle as he 
looked at the stick to see if there was any more 
eating-bark on it, and, finding there was none, 
he threw it away. “I don’t know,” said Toodle 
again, “what would you like to do to have fun?” 

“Let’s go away in the woods,” spoke Noodle, 
“and gnaw down some trees with our teeth, the 
way Grandpa Whackum showed us, and we can 
build a little cabin and play Indian.” 

“That would be fun,” agreed Toodle, “only 

53 


54 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


suppose a bad bear or an unpleasant wolf should 
get after us?” 

“Then I would just blow on my whistle,” said 
his brother, “and Grandpa Whackum, or maybe 
papa, or some of the big folks would hear it and 
come to save us. I say let’s go off to the woods,” 
and he blew his whistle quite loudly, so that 
Grandpa Whackum, the oldest beaver of them 
all, who was mending a hole in the dam 
where the water was running away, Grandpa 
Whackum, as I say, came running up, banging 
his broad, flat tail on the ground, and asking: 

“What’s the matter, boys? Is some one try- 
ing to catch you? Are you in a trap?” 

“Neither one, thank you kindly, Grandpa 
Whackum,” said Noodle, speaking very politely, 
as he had been taught to do, “we are in no dan- 
ger, and I was just blowing on my whistle to 
show Toodle how I could call for help if we went 
to the woods.” 

“I see,” spoke the old gentleman beaver. “I 
heard the whistle, all right, but if you boys go 
off to the woods I could not get to you as soon 
as I did this time. So you want to be very care- 
ful if you do go.” 

“We will,” promised Noodle. “Come on, 
Toodle. Let’s go have some fun.” 

So the two little beaver boys jumped down 
from the big dam, and began swimming toward 


How Toodle Saved Noodle 


55 


the woods some distance off. The beavers could 
swim in the water much better than they could 
waddle, or walk, on land, even if they did stand 
up on their hind legs. And they were much 
safer in the water, but of course they could not 
stay in it all the while. 

On and on swam Noodle and Toodle, and 
sometimes the little beaver boys would see gold 
or silver fish in the water around them, and 
they’d stop for a minute and talk about how 
warm the pond was, and whether there would be 
a fishball game that day, and all things like that. 

And sometimes Toodle and Noodle would see 
some little girl beaver friends of theirs playing 
with their dolls, and their hair ribbons, and their 
sewing on top of the big beaver houses that stuck 
up out of the water. 

“Well, here we are at the woods,” said Noodle, 
after awhile, and he swam to the bank, and 
climbed out of the water. 

“Yes, we’re here,” said Noodle, as he climbed 
out and sat down beside his brother, to dry off 
a little. Both the little beaver boys sat on their 
big tails, which were as good as little stools to 
them, as I have told you in the stories before 
this one. 

“Now for some fun!” cried Toodle, as he 
turned a somersault and part of a peppersault, 
while Noodle blew on his whistle, not very 


56 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


loudly, you know, for he did not want to scare 
Grandpa Whackum and make him come run- 
ning up, thinking there was danger. 

Then the two beaver boys began to play. 
With their four strong orange-colored teeth 
they gnawed down small trees, and began to 
pile them on shore to make a little log cabin. 
They did not build a regular beaver house, which 
is almost always made in the water. This time 
Toodle and Noodle were just playing, and they 
wanted a cabin on shore. 

“Now it’s almost done!” exclaimed Toodle, as 
he went inside and looked out of the window. 


“Yes, a few more logs and it will be ready 
for us to play in,” spoke his brother. “Then you 
can be an Indian part of the time, and I’ll be a 
soldier, and make believe chase and shoot a 
bang-bang gun at you, and then it will be your 
turn to be a soldier with a gun, and I’ll be an 
Indian.” 


And just then, all of a sudden, something 
fell down out of the air, and came down, cracko- 
whacko! hitting Toodle on the head as he was 
looking out of the play-cabin window. 

“Wow,” cried Toodle. “Did vou do that, 
Noodle?” 

“Indeed, I didn’t,” said his brother. “Can’t 
you see that I’m busy here gnawing down this 


How Toodle Saved Noodle 


57 


tree to make the bang-bang gun with? I didn’t 
hit you.” 

Just then Toodle heard some one laughing, 
and, looking up, he saw Billie Bushytail, the 
squirrel boy, sitting on a tree branch right over 
the log cabin. Billie was eating a hickory nut. 

“Excuse me, Toodle,” said Billie, the squirrel 
boy. “I hit you, but I didn’t mean to. I was 
eating a nut and it fell out of my paws and 
landed on your head. Did it hurt you very much, 
Toodle?” 

“Oh, hardly any,” said the little beaver boy. 
“You see I have a lot of fur on top of my head, 
Billie, and it bounced right off — the nut did, I 
mean — not my head.” 

I guess if the nut had hurt him, Toodle 
wouldn’t have said so. Boys are like that, you 
know. That’s the reason they don’t cry, after 
they get over being babies. 

“Come on down and play with us,” said 
Noodle. 

“Yes, do,” invited Toodle. So Billie, the 
squirrel boy, scrambled down from the tree, and 
soon he and the two beaver brothers were play- 
ing in the little log cabin. 

“Oh, such fun as they had! They made up 
all sorts of games, including the one about In- 
dians and soldiers, and then they played a new 
game called “Don’t bite your Paws when all 


58 Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


alone, You try to eat An Ice Cream Cone.” 
That is a very funny game, only you have to 
have ice cream cones to play it, and it was a 
lucky thing Uncle Wiggily Longears, the old 
gentleman rabbit, came along .just as Toodle, 
Noodle and Billie were ready to start it, for he 
had the ice cream cones with him in his valise, 

and he gave them to the boy animals to use. 

Well, the old rabbit gentleman watched them 
playing about for some time, and then he hopped 
off to see his friend, Grandfather Goosey Gan- 
der, and Billie, the squirrel, went with him. So 
that left Toodle and Noodle alone. They played 
some more, and then Noodle thought he would 
make himself a little toy boat to go sailing in. 

Noodle went off by himself down to the edge 
of the water where a nice little tree grew, and he 
was cutting this tree down with his sharp teeth, 
while Toodle was up in the play-cabin making 
believe he was a soldier on guard, when all of a 
sudden something happened. 

A great big, old, gray wolf, who hadn’t had 
anything to eat in a long, long time — not since 
Fourth of July I guess — this bad, old, gray wolf 
sprang out of the bushes and grabbed Noodle in 
his paws. 

“Now I’ve got you!” growled the wolf, and 
really he had. There was no mistake about 
that. The wolf had poor Noodle! 


How Toodle Saved Noodle 59 


“Oh, dear,” cried the little beaver boy. “Let 
me go! Oh, please let me go, and I’ll give you 
all the money I have home in my tin bank.” 

“No! No!” growled the bad old wolf, and he 
started to take Noodle off to his den. Noodle 
tried to blow on his willow whistle to call for 
help, but it was in his pocket where he couldn’t 
reach it. And it looked as if the wolf would 
take him away. 

But have no fear, little ones. I have a plan 
to save Noodle. 

Toodle, up in the cabin, saw what had hap- 
pened, and he cried: 

“I’m coming, Noodle! I’m coming!” Down 

the hill ran Toodle, and going close up to where 

the wolf was with his brother, Toodle stood in 

the water, and with his broad, flat tail, which is 

just like a pancake-turner, that brave little 

beaver boy splashed water all over that wolf. 

In the wolf’s eyes and nose and mouth it went, 

making him sneeze and gasp and choke. Of 

course Noodle got all wet too, but he didn’t 

mind that a bit. He liked it. And finallv the 

•/ 

wolf was so soaking wet, and he sneezed and 
choked so hard, that he had to let go of Noodle, 
who at once ran away and was safe, for Toodle 
had saved him, just as I said he would. 

“Come on, I guess we’d better go home,” said 
Toodle, and he and Noodle went back to the 


60 


Toodle and Noodle Flat- Tail 


beaver dam. As for the wolf he had to go to 
the doctor to get something to make him stop 
sneezing, and it served him right, I think. 

So no more now, if you please, but if the little 
chicken next door doesn’t come in and pick a 
hole in the baby’s red circus balloon so that it 
bursts, I’ll tell you next about Toodle ’s and 
Noodle’s little sister. 


STORY VIII 


TOODLE^S AND NOODLE^S LITTLE SISTER 

4 ‘Well, boys,” said Grandpa Whackum, the 
old gentleman beaver, one morning, as he swam 
out of the house in the pond and took a seat on 
his tail, on top of the dam, next to where Toodle 
and Noodle Flat-tail were sitting; “well, boys, 
I think you might take a few more swimming 
lessons today, for after you start going to school 
I won’t find much time to teach you.” 

School!” cried Noodle, 44 are we going to 
school, grandpa?” 

4 4 Of course,” said the old gentleman beaver, 
slowly blinking both his eyes. 

“Rut school for the other animals began some 
time ago,” spoke Toodle. 44 Johnnie and Billie 
Bushytail, the squirrels, have been going two 
weeks, and so has Sammie Littletail, the rabbit. 
I thought we wouldn’t have to go.” 

44 Yes,” said Grandpa Whackum, 44 it is true 

you two boys will start in a little late, but that 

is because your papa and mamma first wanted 

you to have some lessons at home in tree cutting, 

and in house and dam making and things like 

that. But when you do start to school, say in a 

61 


62 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


week or so, you can easily catch up to the others. 

“So, as I said. I’ll give you your last swim- 
ming lesson now, and then you will always be 
able to get away from any animals that chase 
after you in the water.” 

Now Toodle and Noodle liked the water very 
much, and they so enjoyed having Grandpa 
Whackum show them the best way to swim and 
dive and float, as well as stay under water with- 
out breathing for a long time — they liked this 
so much, I say, that they forgot about soon hav- 
ing to go to school. 

My! how they splashed about in the pond, 
using their hind paws, which were something like 
a duck’s feet. They fairly rushed through the 
water, and when they wanted to go very specially 
fast they used their broad, flat tail just like a 
propeller on a steamboat. 

“That’s the way to do it!” cried Grandpa 
Whackum, as he told the beaver boys what to 
do. “Turn around quickly in the water, and 
dive down when an alligator or a sea lion chases 
you,” said the old gentleman beaver, showing 
them how. 

So Toodle and Noodle practiced their swim- 
ming lesson, and then their grandpa said: 

“Now, boys, come up on this old stump and 
do some diving. Jump right into the water; 
don’t be afraid!” 


Toodle’s and Noodle’s Little Sister 63 


Grandpa Whackum showed them how to do 
this, springing off his hind feet and going away 
down under water where no one could see him 
until he popped up again. 

Toodle and Noodle did this after him, and, 
though at first they were not very good at it, 
soon they got so they could dive as nicely as 
could be. 

‘‘Now you are good swimmers,” said the old 
gentleman beaver, “and you may have time to 
play. But be careful not to go too far away, 
over to the woods, or the had wolf may get you.” 

Toodle and Noodle said they would be care- 
ful, and then they began playing tag, and hide 
your tail, and jump over your chewing gum, and 
all games like that. Finally they swam away 
up to one end of the beaver pond, and they were 
just going to climb out on land, and sit on their 
tails for a while, until they thought of a new 
game, or until some of their friends came home 
from school, when, all of a sudden, something 
happened. 

No, it wasn’t a rustling in the bushes, and no 
bad animal jumped out on them. Goodness 
knows that takes place often enough, as you well 
know. But it was something different this time. 

Toodle and Noodle heard a gentle little voice 
somewhere off in the woods, and it kept saying: 

“Oh dear! Oh dear! Oh dear! What shall 


64 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


I do? Who will take care of me? Oh dear!” 

“Hark!” cried Noodle. “Did you hear that?” 

“Indeed, I did,” answered his brother. “Come 
on, let’s go home!” and he started toward the 
pond. 

“Go home!” exclaimed Noodle. “What for? 
Let’s go see what that is.” 

“No, sir! Never!” cried Toodle. “Why 
most likely it’s a bear or a wolf, making believe 
cry like that so we’ll come closer, and then he 
can grab us. No, sir! don’t you go see what it 
is at all. Come on home!” 

“Oh, don’t be a silly!” exclaimed Noodle. 
“That’s some little boy or girl animal in trouble. 
A wolf or a bear couldn’t cry in such a tiny, 
weeny voice as that. I say let’s see what it is.” 

Toodle listened to the crying voice again. 
Truly it did sound like some little animal, and 
not like a bad bear, and finally Toodle said: 

“Well, let’s go take a look. But be all ready 
to run in case there’s danger. Remember 
Grandpa Whackum isn’t here to help us.” 

“Oh, I’ll be careful,” promised Noodle. 

Slowly and carefully the two little beaver hoys 
went toward where they heard the voice. It was 
still crying away like this: 

“Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Will no one come and 
take care of me? Oh, dear!” 


Toodle’s and Noodle’s Little Sister 65 


“It’s in that old stump over there,” said Toodle 
after a bit of looking about. 

“Yes, that’s where it is,” agreed Noodle. “The 
stump is hollow and some poor chap is inside it.” 

So Toodle and Noodle went up to the hollow 
stump, and they stood up on their tippy-toes, 
and they looked in, and at first it was so dark 
they couldn’t see anything, and then — and then 
— all of a sudden — they looked once more, and 
— what do you think they found ? 

Why, there was the dearest, sweetest, cutest 
little baby beaver girl you ever saw! She was 
all dressed in a long blue-pink-yellow dress, and 
she had a little bottle of milk in one paw and a 
rubber rattle-box in the other, but she was cry- 
ing, this little baby beaver girl was, and she 
seemed so lonesome and afraid that Toodle and 
Noodle felt very sorry for her, and loved her at 
once. 

“Oh, look!” cried Toodle. “A baby in a hol- 
low stump!” 

“Yes, and maybe we can take her home and 
keep her for our little sister,” said Noodle. “Oh, 
joy! 

“Oh, dear!” said the little baby beaver. 

“What’s the matter?” asked Noodle. 

“Oh, I’m left all alone,” said the baby. “I 
was out in the woods with my papa and mamma, 
and a bear and a wolf chased us. My papa and 


66 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


mamma ran as fast as they could, but the bear 
and wolf kept after them, and finally they got 
so close that my papa and mamma couldn’t get 
away. Then my mamma hid me in this stump, 
hoping, I guess, that some one would find me, 
and then she and papa ran on and — and ” 

But the little baby beaver cried so hard that 
she couldn’t talk. Toodle and Noodle felt the 
tears coming into their eyes also, but Toodle 
asked, very, very softly: 

‘‘What happened after that, baby?” 

“The — the bear and wolf carried my papa 
and mamma away to their dens,” said the baby 
beaver, “and — and I’m left all alone. Nobody 
loves me! Oh, dear!” 

“Don’t cry any more!” said Toodle, and with 
his handkerchief he wiped the eyes of the baby 
beaver. “We love you, and we’ll take care of 
you, won’t we, Noodle?” 

“Indeed we will!” exclaimed the other beaver 
boy. “We’ll take you home with us, and you can 
be our little sister.” 

“Will you really?” asked the baby, who was 
old enough to talk, you see, and she could walk 
a little. “That will be lovely!” she said, and she 
stopped crying. 

So Toodle and Noodle helped her out of the 
hollow stump, and then they made a little boat 
out of a piece of tree which they gnawed down, 


Toodle’s and Noodle’s Little Sister 67 


and they rowed the baby beaver across the pond 
to their house. And Mrs. Flat-tail said her 
boys did just right to bring the poor little thing 
home; and she took her for her very own baby 
and for a sister to Noodle and Toodle. 

They named her Crackie, for she used to drop 
the dishes and cups and crack them. But no 
one minded that very much, for they loved 
Crackie so. And one day a wolf chased her and 
she threw an ice cream cone at him and cracked 
that, but it scared the wolf so that he ran away, 
which was what Crackie wanted. 

So that’s how Toodle and Noodle got a little 
sister, whom they loved very much, and some 
day Grandpa Whackum said he might find that 
bad wolf and bear and make them let Crackie’s 
papa and mamma go. But lots of things hap- 
pened before that. 

And in the next story, if the cocoanut pie 
doesn’t roll off the table and break the cream 
pitcher’s leg, I’ll tell you tomorrow night about; 
Toodle and Noodle sliding down hill. 


STORY IX 


TOODLE AND NOODLE SLIDE DOWN 

Once upon a time Toodle and Noodle Flat- 
tail, the little beaver boys, went sliding down 
hill when there wasn’t any snow on the ground, 
and a very strange thing happened to them. 
I’m going to tell you all about it, if you’d like 
to hear it. So, if you will kindly not wiggle 
too much, and not call the dog over here to rub 
his wet tail on my newly polished shoes and take 
all the shine off so I can’t go to the party, I’ll 
tell you all about it. 

It began this way. Toodle said to Noodle, 
his brother, one day: 

“Let’s have some fun.” 

“All right,” said Noodle to Toodle, “we will. 
What shall we do?” 

“Let’s go out on the dam and look around,” 
said Toodle. “Maybe we’ll see something 
there.” 

The dam, you know, was the big wall of 

sticks and stones, and grass and mud, that held 

the water of the beaver pond from running 

away and leaving all the beaver houses on dry 

68 


Toodle and Noodle Slide Down 


69 


land. Because the beaver animals, you know, 
like to have their houses in water. 

“ Shall we take Crackie with us?” asked Noo- 
dle. Crackie, you remember, was the new little 
baby sister of the beaver boys. They had found 
her in a hollow stump. “Shall w r e take Crackie?” 
asked Noodle. 

“Why, yes, I guess so,” answered Toodle. 
“She’d like to come and have some fun.” 

So they swam back to the beaver house, dived 
down under water where the front door was (so 
no bad animals could get in without at least get- 
ting wet) and then Noodle called: 

“Hi there, Crackie! Want to come with us?” 

“Of course I do,” answered Crackie, and then 
something sounded “Bango!” 

“My goodness! What is that?” cried Mrs. 
Flat-tail, mother of the beaver children. “What 
did you break that time, Crackie?” 

“Only the looking glass. Oh, dear!” answered 
the little baby beaver. “It’s all cracked to 
pieces.” 

“Oh, Crackie!” cried Toodle, sadly like. 

That’s the reason her name was “Crackie,” as 
I told you in the story before this one. The poor 
little girl did not mean to do it, but she was 
always cracking or breaking something. Some 
people are like that; aren’t they? 

“I — I was just looking in the glass to see if 


70 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


my hair ribbon was on straight,” said Crackie, 
“when the mirror just fell out of my claws and 
broke!” 

Crackie was getting to be quite a girl, you see, 
to have hair ribbons and all things like that. Oh, 
beaver children grow very fast, you know. They 
are something like mushrooms that spring up 
over night. 

“Well, never mind, Crackie, my dear,” said 
Mrs. Flat-tail. “You couldn’t help it, I know. 
You didn’t do it on purpose. Run along out 
with the boys and play.” 

“Yes, come on, Crackie!” cried Toodle. 
“We’re going to have some fun!” 

Say, I guess, I’d better begin telling about 
that sliding down hill without any snow on the 
ground pretty soon, had I not? or else I’ll get 
to the end of this story without putting it in. 

Well, anyhow, as the telephone girl says 
sometimes, Toodle and Noodle and Crackie, the 
three beaver children, swam out of the house in 
the pond and began looking for something so 
that they might have a good time. 

They looked over toward where Grandpa 
Whackum, the oldest beaver of them all, was 
showing another beaver gentleman, who had 
just gone to housekeeping, how to stop a leak 
in his roof. And the animal children saw their 
grandpa climb up on the roof with some plaster- 


Toodle and Noodle Slide Down 


71 


mud in his paws to fix the hole, and then, when 
he had used up the plaster, they saw him slide 
down the roof for more, going splash! into the 
water. 

‘'Say, that’s what we can do to have some 
fun!” exclaimed Toodle. 

“Do what?” asked Noodle. 

“Slide down hill,” answered Toodle. 

“How can we slide down hill when there isn’t 
any snow,” asked Crackie, who was a very smart 
little beaver baby girl. 

“I’ll show you,” said Toodle. “You know 
mud is very slippery, and the roofs of lots of 
our houses are made of mud. Grandpa Whack- 
um just slid down one, sitting on his flat tail, 
and we can do the same.” 

“That’s right,” cried Noodle. “We’ll find an 
old house, where no one lives any more, and we’ll 
wet the roof by splashing water on it, and then 
we’ll take turns sliding down into the pond. 
That will be jolly fun!” 

Toodle thought so, too, and so did Crackie. 
She swam along with her brothers, carrying 
her rubber doll in one paw. The rubber doll 
didn’t mind being wet, you know. 

Well, finally the beaver children found a big 
house, that was rounding on top just like a 
hill, and no one lived in it. The roof was cov- 
ered with dried mud, but with their tails Toodle 


72 


Toodle and Noodle Flat- Tail 


and Noodle and Crackie soon splashed water on 
it and made it as slippery as the most slippy- 
ippy hill covered with snow or ice that you ever 
saw. For you know how sluppy-slippy wet 
mud is if you have ever fallen down in it when 
you were going to school. Or maybe your rub- 
ber has stuck in the slippery-sticky mud and 
come off. Mine did once, and I dropped my ice 
cream cone in a puddle of water, and the worst 
of it was I didn’t have any more money to get 
another, either. 

Well, finally the rounding, hilly top part of 
the roof of the beaver house was all wet and 
slippery mud, and Toodle and Noodle began 
to slide down it. They wanted to try it first 
before they let their little sister Crackie go on 
it, to be sure it was safe for her. 

And it was all right, I’m glad to say, and 
when the beaver boys sat on their tails and gave 
themselves a little push away they went down 
the muddy hill, without any snow on it, almost 
as fast as a choo-choo train, or maybe even an 
automobile, for all I know. Think of that! 

“Now may I try it?” asked Crackie. 

“Yes, come along,” said Toodle. 

“We’ll give you a good push!” said Noodle. 

Crackie let her rubber doll swim in the water 
while she climbed up on top of the house-hill 
and got ready to slide down into the water. It 


Toodle and Noodle Slide Down 


73 


was like shooting the chutes at Coney Island, 
you know. 

“Splish-splash!” went Crackie into the water, 
and she laughed and shouted, it was such fun. 

“She slides as well as we do, Noodle,” said 
Toodle. - m 

“Indeed she does!” said Noodle to Toodle. 

Then the beaver children took more turns 
sliding down the muddy hill. Sometimes they 
slid separately, and often all three of them 
would go down together. Then Toodle got a 
long piece of birch bark for a sled, and they all 
sat on that, holding their tails up in the air, and 
down they went, whizzing along until they hit 
the water with a splash. 

Oh, it was great fun! 

Then, all of a sudden, when Toodle and 
Noodle had gone sliding down together, leav- 
ing Crackie standing alone on the top of the 
muddy hill, to come down after them, all of a 
sudden, up out of the water came the bad old 
skillery-scalery alligator, and before Toodle or 
Noodle knew what was happening the savage 
creature, with the double- jointed tail, had 
grabbed them both in his paws. 

“Oh, let us go! Let us go!” cried Toodle. 

“Yes, please let us go!” begged Noodle, and 
he tried to make his tail go “whack!” on the 
water, the way his grandpa had taught him to 


74 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


do to call for help. But the alligator held him 
too tightly, and Noodle couldn’t move even his 
nose. 

“Oh, will no one help us?” shouted Toodle. 

“No, there is no one here to help you,” barked 
the alligator, just like a dog. “I am going to 
take you off to my den!” 

“Oh, ho! No, you’re not!” cried little 
Crackie, up on top of the mud-hill, and with 
that she came sliding down so fast that she sud- 
denly hit that alligator right on the end of his 
nose, and that made tears come into his eyes, 
and whenever that happens to a skillery-scalery 
alligator he has to go right away to the dentist. 
It was that way with this one, and, as soon as 
Crackie bumped him, he dropped Toodle and 
Noodle, letting them go, and away the bad 
creature swam to have a tooth pulled out, which 
served him right, I think. 

So that’s how Crackie saved Toodle and 
Noodle by sliding down the mud-hill and bump- 
ing the alligator. Then the beaver children had 
a lot more fun in the water and the alligator 
didn’t bother them any more that day. And in 
the story after this, if the merry-go-round doesn’t 
dance a jig on the roof, and wake up the little 
mouse in the pantry, I’ll tell you about Toodle 
and Noodle going to school. 


STORY X 


TOODLE AND NOODLE AT SCHOOL 

“Hark! What’s that?” cried Toodle Flat- 
tail, the little beaver boy, as he rolled over in his 
bed of clean, white pine-splinters one morning. 
“Did you hear that. Noodle?” 

“Indeed I did,” answered the other beaver 
boy. “Listen, Toodle.” 

They both listened, and they heard a bell ring- 
ing off in the distance: 

“Ding-dong! Ding-dong!” 

“Fire!” cried Noodle. “It’s a fire. Let’s get 
up and — ” 

“Fire! That’s no fire!” said Toodle. “That’s 
the school bell that’s ringing, and we have to go 
to school today, Noodle, my boy. Don’t you 
remember what Grandpa Whackum said to us?” 

“Indeed I do,” answered Noodle. “So this is 
the day we have to start school? I wonder if 
our little sister Crackie is coming?” 

“I don’t believe she is old enough,” answered 
Toodle. “It would be fun if she could, though. 
But did you hear anything else besides the bell, 
Noodle?” 

Then both the little beaver boys listened 

75 


76 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


again, just as the telephone girl does when you 
talk to her, and they heard some one calling: 

“Hi there, Noodle! Hi there, Toodle! Time 
to get up! You have to go to school today.” 
It was their papa. 

“All right!” called the two beaver boys very 
politely, as all animal children do. ‘‘We’re 
coming.” 

Quickly they washed their faces and paws in 
the water of the beaver pond, and then they were 
ready for breakfast. They had water-lily pan- 
cakes with birch-bark syrup on, and winter- 
green muffins with maple sugar, and their 
mamma, Mrs. Flat-tail, also put them up a nice 
lunch of watercress bread with willow bark jam 
in between the slices. 

“I wish I could go to school,” said Crackie, 
the little beaver girl baby, whom the two boys 
had found in a hollow stump one day. “I’d 
like to go and learn how to make mud pies.” 

“Some day you may, my dear,” said Mrs. 
Flat-tail, as she hurried about the kitchen, mak- 
ing some nice warm ginger-root soup for 
Grandpa Whackum. 

So Toodle and Noodle started for school. 
They were a little bit behind the other animal 
children, for the school had opened a week or 
so before this, but then the beaver boys had to 


Toodle and Noodle at School 


77 


practice their swimming, and gnawing and 
other lessons, which is what kept them home. 

But now they were going to school, and as 
they waddled along, wondering what sort of 
lessons they would have to recite, they met a 
number of their friends. Bully No-tail, the 
frog, was hopping on the path by the water, 
and Jimmie Wibblewobble, the boy duck, was 
swimming in the water, as were Toodle and 
Noodle. Overhead, also on his wav to school, 
was Dickie Chipchip, the sparrow hoy. 

The school where Toodle and Noodle went 
was in an old boat that floated around the beaver 
pond, just like the grocery store that one of the 
animals kept. And the school-boat, not being 
tied fast anywhere, was never in the same place 
any two mornings. Sometimes it would be here, 
and sometimes it would be there. 

And on that account the animal children were 
often late. They would start for the boat-school 
at the place where it had been the day before. 
But in the night the wind might have blown it 
far off, so by the time they found it the animals 
would be late for their lessons. But the old 
gentleman teacher, Mr. Water Rat, did not 
mind that much, and he never kept any of the 
children in for being late. Sometimes Woodie 
and Waddie Chuck, the groundhog boys, would 


78 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


be so late that they only got to school just as it 
was letting out for the day. That was jolly. 

So, as I said, Toodle and Noodle started for 
school. On the way 
their animal friends, and once, when Sammie 
Littletail, the rabbit boy, was chasing Toodle, 
the beaver boy jumped into the water and swam 
a long way, so Sammie couldn’t tag him. 

But the school bell kept ringing and ringing, 
and finally Toodle and Noodle were at the old 
floating boat where they were to study their les- 
sons. It had not drifted very far in the night, 
so no one was late this morning. 

“Now, children, attention!” said old Mr. 
Water Rat, who kept the school. “We will 
first have a lesson in arithmetic, or number work. 

“Toodle Flat-tail, you may tell me this. If 
you had a pear and your brother, Noodle, had 
two apples, how many would there be alto- 
gether?” 

“Do you mean if we were very hungry?” 
asked Toodle, slowly like. 

“Why, what has that to do with it?” asked 
the school teacher rat. “Two apples and one 
pear are always the same, whether you are 
hungry or not.” 

“Oh, no,” said Toodle, as politely as he knew 
how. “For if Noodle and I were hungry there 
wouldn’t be any left no matter how many pears 


they had lots of fun with 


Toodle and Noodle r at School 


79 


or apples there were at first. We would eat 
them up, you see, teacher.” 

“I see,” said the teacher. “That is very good. 
You may go up head, Toodle.” So that is how 
Toodle got up to the head of his class the first 
day in school. Wasn’t that good? 

Well, then, the teacher asked Noodle a ques- 
tion. Said Professor Water Rat: 

“If you had five pennies, and your mamma 
should give you ten pennies more, how many 
pennies would you have?” 

“Not any,” said Noodle, as politely as he 
knew T how. 

“Why not?” asked the teacher. “Do not five 
pennies and ten pennies make fifteen pennies?” 

“Maybe,” said Noodle; “but, please sir, if I 
had fifteen pennies I’d buy three ice cream cones 
— one for Toodle and one for my sister Crackie, 
and one for myself, so I would not have any pen- 
nies, you see.” 

“Very good,” said the professor rat. “You 
may also go up head, Noodle.” So Noodle did, 
and he and Toodle sat in the same seat. They 
were quite proud, too, at getting up head their 
first day in school. Not too proud, you know, 
but just proud enough. 

Well, all of a sudden, as the animal children 
were studying away very quietly, a voice called: 

“I want Toodle! I want Noodle!” 


80 


Toodle and Noodle Flat- Tail 


Everybody looked up surprised like. The two 
beaver boys were sort of scared, too. 

“Oh, dear!” cried Noodle, and he looked for 
a window so he could jump out into the pond 
and swim away. 

“It’s a bear after us!” cried Toodle, jumping 
up. 

The professor rat teacher got out his ruler to 
fight the bear, if he should come in, but instead, 
there walked into the school only little Crackie, 
the baby beaver girl. She had her rubber doll 
with her. 

“I want Toodle and Noodle!” said Crackie. 
“I’m tired of staying home and playing all alone. 
Please teacher, can’t you let them out of school 
and amuse me?” 

Well, you should have heard the animal chil- 
dren laugh at that! The idea of a little girl 
beaver coming to get her brothers out of school 
to play with her! Did you ever hear of any- 
thing like that? I guess not! 

Even Professor Rat had to laugh, and there 
was so much fun that no one could study. 

“Can’t Toodle and Noodle come home with 
me?” asked Crackie again. 

“Well, pretty soon,” said the teacher. “You 
just sit down here, Crackie, and make some pic- 
tures on the blackboard.” 

So Crackie came to school also, vou see, 

7 •• 


Toodle and Noodle at School 


81 


though it was not intended, and pretty soon, 
when school was nearly out a bad old fox stuck 
his nose in the window, looking to see if he 
could grab Lulu Wibblewobble, the duck girl. 
But Crackie Flat-tail threw a piece of chalk at 
him, and the fox was glad to run off and not 
come back any more that week, fearing he was 
going to get a bad chalk-mark, you see. 

So that’s how Crackie did good by going to 
school to get her brothers. And when lessons 
were done she went out with them and had a 
good time. And on the next page, if the door 
knob doesn’t turn over in its sleep and roll out 
of the window, I’ll tell you about Crackie break- 
ing her doll. 


STORY XI 


HOW CRACKIE BROKE HER DOLL 

I may as well tell you at the very beginning, 
for you would find it out sooner or later any- 
how, I suppose, so I may as well tell you at the 
beginning, that this is partly a story for girls, 
and partly a story for boys. The girl part is 
about the doll, and the boy part is about break- 
ing it, and after that — 

Well, I guess I had better tell you the story, 
and let you see for yourselves what happened 
afterward. 

The reason this story is to be both for girls 
and boys is because my little girl asked me to 
write a story with a doll in it. I said I would. 

And right after that my little boy, who heard 
her, said: 

“And please put a scary part in it for me.” 

You see boys like the scary part. So that’s 
why this is a sort of double- jointed story — one 
part for girls and the other for boys. 

Now that I have explained it I will begin. 

One day Toodle Flat-tail, the little beaver 
boy, hurried home from school with his brother 
Noodle, and said: 


82 


How Crackle Broke Her Doll 


83 


“I know what let’s do! We’ll get in our play- 
boat, and go off on a voyage. Maybe we’ll find 
an island where oranges and bananas and cocoa- 
nuts grow, and we can play we’re shipwrecked, 
and pirates and all like that.” 

“All right — let’s,” agreed Noodle. “Shall we 
take our sister Crackie along?” 

“No, not this time,” said Toodle. “She might 
be afraid if we played pirates, or anything like 
that. Besides, she is having a good time with 
her doll. We’ll leave her home.” 

And, truly, Crackie, who was the baby beaver 
girl, who was always dropping things, and 
breaking or cracking them (without the least in 
the world meaning to), Crackie, I say, was 
playing with her doll. It was a new wooden 
doll, made from a part of a birch tree that 
Grandpa Whackum, the oldest beaver of them 
all, had gnawed down for the little girl. 
Crackie’s rubber doll was asleep under the re- 
frigerator, where she would be nice and cool. 

So Toodle and Noodle started off in their 
play-boat which was a log hollowed out so they 
could sit in it. They used their tails for sails. 

Now those beaver boys could swim much 
faster and better than any boat you ever saw, 
and that’s why it is so queer that they wanted 
to go off in a hollowed-out log. But they did. 
Why, do you know, I have seen real boys who 


84 


Toodle and Noodle Flat- Tail 


would rather get on an old raft made of boards, 
and paddle around in a mud puddle, getting all 
wet — they would rather do that almost any day 
than go to school, or have their hair cut or a 
tooth pulled. Isn’t that odd? 

Well, anyhow, as the peanut man sometimes 
says, Toodle and Noodle sailed off and Crackie 
stayed home and played with her doll. She 
made a new dress for it out of part of a clothes- 
pin and a lead pencil. And she made a hat out 
of a strawberry box, trimming it with shavings. 
That’s what it is to have a wooden doll, you see. 

And now, for a minute or so, I’ll tell you 
what happened to Noodle and Toodle. This is 
where the scary part comes in, so cuddle down in 
papa’s or mamma’s lap if you like, though it 
isn’t going to be so very scary. 

The two little beaver boys sailed on and on 
in their play-boat and pretty soon they were 
nearly across the big beaver pond. And then 
they saw an island. It had some trees growing 
on it, and it looked to be a good place to pretend 
being shipwrecked, and pirates, and all like that, 
and Toodle called to Noodle: 

“Let’s land there, my brave old salt!” He 
said that, making believe he was a sailor, you 
understand. 

“Ha! We will land there, messmate!” re- 






How Crackie Broke Her Doll 


85 


plied Noodle to Toodle, also making believe he 
was a sailor. 

So they steered their boat toward the island 
and landed there. There were no orange trees, 
I am sorry to say, and no cocoanut ones, though 
I suppose I could just as well as not have writ- 
ten about them growing there. Perhaps next 
time I will. But, anyhow, as the hand organ 
man says occasionally, Toodle and Noodle saw 
a hickory nut tree there, and the two beaver boys 
thought they would get some of the nuts. 

‘"We can eat some,” said Toodle. 

“And with the others we can play marbles,” 
said Noodle. 

With that they began to gnaw down the tree, 
for that to them, was easier than climbing up, 
as Billie or Johnnie Bushytail, the squirrel 
brothers, would have done. 

Well, Toodle and Noodle had the tree almost 
gnawed down, and they were thinking how good 
the nuts would taste, when, all of a sudden, the 
bad wolf, who owned the island and the trees, 
and all on it, came along, and he growled: 

“Ah, ha! This is the time I have those beaver 
boys! Taking my trees, eh? Just for that I’ll 
take them both off to jail and bite them on each 
of their ears. Wow!” 

Wasn’t he the bad old wolf, though? 

So before Toodle or Noodle could run away, 


86 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


for they were not very quick on their feet on 
land, as I have told you, before they could get 
away the wolf had them both. He held Toodle 
in one paw and Noodle in the other, and he just 
glared at them, worse than a rag doll stares at 
the ceiling when she’s asleep. 

“Oh, please let us go!” begged Noodle. “I’ll 
give you an ice cream cone if you do.” 

“Yes, and I’ll give you two,” said Toodle. 

“No, sir-ee sir!” exclaimed the wolf, just a3 
the coal man sometimes speaks before he brings 
in the ice. “I am going to take you off to jail,” 
and away the wolf started with Toodle and 
Noodle. 

Now, just about this time Crackie, the little 
girl beaver, had her wooden doll all dressed, and 
she thought she would start out to find her 
brothers. She asked some other boy and girl 
beavers, who were out playing after school, 
which way Toodle and Noodle had gone in their 
play-boat, and in this way Crackie started to- 
ward the make-believe shipwreck island. But 
she did not go in a boat — she swam, and carried 
her doll on her back so as not to wet her straw- 
berrv-box bonnet. 

Crackie easily found the island, for she was 
a very smart little beaver girl, but at first she 
could not see her brothers. Then Crackie saw 
where the two boy beavers had started to gnaw 


How Crackie Broke Her Doll 


87 


down the hickory nut tree, and next she saw the 
tracks of the wolf, and she guessed what had 
happened. 

“Oh, the bad wolf has my brothers !” said 
Crackie. “I am going to try to save them!” 

So, without stopping to think that she, a 
little beaver girl, could not do much against a 
bad wolf, Crackie started out. And she had not 
gone very far before she came up behind a 
blackberry bush, on which strawberries hap- 
pened to be growing, and on the other side of 
that bush sat the wolf, holding Toodle in one 
paw and Noodle in the other. The wolf had 
become tired and bad stopped to rest. 

“You boys are a regular nuisance,” growled 
the wolf. “I wish I had you in jail now.” 

“Prav, do not take us if it is too much 
trouble,” said Noodle, politely, hoping he and 
his brother would be let go. 

“Oh, I’ll take you to jail just the same,” said 
the bad old wolf, “only I’ll bite your ears now 
instead of after I get you there. It may be so 
dark when I get you to the jail that I can’t see 
to do it.” 

Then Toodle and Noodle felt very badly at 
having started to gnaw down the hickory trees 
but they had not meant to do wrong, and if 
they had known the island belonged to the wolf 
they’d never have gone there at all. 


88 


Toodle and Noodle Flat- Tail 


“Well, I guess I’ll bite your ears,” said the 
wolf, and he opened his wide mouth. And, just 
as he did so, brave Crackie reached around from 
behind the strawberry-lemon pie bush, and right 
between the wolf’s opened teeth she stuck her 
wooden doll, and when the wolf closed down his 
jaws he bit on the woodep doll, instead of on 

Noodle’s ear, and the doll broke in two. 

So that’s how Crackie spoiled her doll. 

“Wow! Double wow and some pepper hash!” 
cried the wolf, as surprised as anything at hav- 
ing bitten on a wooden doll when he didn’t mean 
to. “This is terrible!” And with that the wolf 
dropped Noodle and Toodle and ran off to have 
his dentist make him a new set of teeth, as he 
had broken his. So the two beaver boys were 
safe, you see. 

Of course they were very thankful to Crackie 
for saving them, and they felt sorry about her 
broken doll. But the doll was easilv fixed when 
Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, 
came along with some paste, so Crackie’s pet 
was soon as good as ever. 

Then she went home with Noodle and Toodle 
to have her supper and get to bed. And in the 
next story, if the lady’s hatpin doesn’t stick in 
the automobile tire and let all the juice run out, 
like an orange shortcake at a picnic, I’ll tell you 
about Toodle and Noodle playing Indian. 


STORY XII 


TOODLE AND NOODLE PLAY INDIAN 

One day Grandpa Whackum, the oldest beaver 
gentleman of them all, came in from where he 
had been looking at the dam which held the 
water in the pond from running out. Grandpa 
Whackum, who was called that, you remember, 
because he used to whack his tail on the ground, 
to warn his friends of danger — Grandpa 
Whackum brought with him to the beaver house 
where Toodle and Noodle and Crackie Flat-tail 
lived, some long, slender pieces of wood he had 
picked up. 

They were left over after a hole in the dam 
had been mended, and the hole was made by the 
bad skillery-scalery alligator sticking in his 
double- jointed tail. 

“There, boys,” said Grandpa Whackum to 
Toodle and Noodle as he tossed them the sticks, 
“there is something you can make bows and 
arrows of.” 

“Oh, goodie!” cried Noodle. 

“And we can play Indian!” said Toodle. 
“That will be fun; eh, Noodle?” 

“Sure,” said Noodle. 

89 


90 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


“May I play?” asked Crackie, who was mak- 
ing a sawdust dress for her wooden doll, the 
same one the wolf bit in two and Uncle Wiggily 
Longears, the rabbit gentleman, mended, you 
remember. 

“Pooh! Girls can’t play Indian!” said Noo- 
dle. “You could be a Red-Cross nurse if you 
wanted to, though, and take care of us when we 
get shot.” 

“I don’t want to do that,” said the little beaver 
girl. “I want to be a real Indian myself and 
play with you.” 

“Oh, girls can’t be Indians,” said Toodle, and 
with that he and his brother, thinking no more 
of Crackie, began to make their bows and 
arrows. 

To make a bow you take a stick and bend it. 
Then you make it fast, so it can’t uncurve, by 
tying the two ends with a long string. That 
makes the string tight, and when you put an 
arrow on the string and stretch it and let it go 
suddenly, the arrow shoots a long way off. 

But you must be very careful not to have 
sharp arrows, and not to aim them at any one 
— ever! Shoot at the fence. The fence doesn’t 
mind it. 

Soon Toodle and Noodle had their bows and 
arrows all made and they started off to find a 
good place to play Indian. 


Toodle and Noodle Play Indian 


91 


“We won’t go to the wolf’s island this time,” 
said Toodle. 

“No, indeed,” agreed Noodle. “It’s too dan- 
gerous. If we go anywhere let’s go to a butter- 
fly’s island. A butterfly won’t hurt us, even if 
we should gnaw down his peach tree.” 

So off they started in their play-boat, leaving 
Crackie at home as before, playing with her 
mended wooden doll. And the rubber doll was 
asleep in the bathtub, for she was very fond of 
soap and water. Not to eat, of course, but to 
float around in. 

Well, Noodle and Toodle sailed on and on 
in their boats, hoisting their tails for sails, and 
soon they came to a new little island. They 
were sure this did not belong to the wolf, and 
so they decided to land on it and play Indian. 

Out of the boat they got, and soon they were 
having a good time on the island, where a huckle- 
berry bush grew with oranges dangling from the 
branches. I know that seems queer, but it was 
so in those days. Of course things have changed 
since then, and I don‘t suppose there are now 
any huckleberry bushes with oranges on, or even 
lemons, for that matter, but I am telling you 
this exactly as it happened. 

Toodle and Noodle ate a few oranges and then 
they began to play. They took some poles and 
made themselves a wigwam, which is what an In- 


92 


Toodle and Noodle Flat- Tail 


dian calls a house. It has a hole in the roof for 
the smoke to go out, and it looks like a lot of 
bean poles stacked up in the garden after sum- 
mer is over. 

Toodle and Noodle were playing away at a 
great rate in their Indian wigwam, shooting 
arrows at other make-believe Indians in the 
bushes, sometimes hitting and knocking down an 
orange or two. And whenever they did this they 
would stop and eat the oranges. In this way 
their faces and paws got quite yellow. But the 
boy beavers did not mind that. 

“It only makes us look more like Indians,” 
said Noodle. 

“To be sure,” agreed his brother. 

“Now,” said Noodle after a bit, “let’s both 
shoot our arrows at once at that big black stump 
over there. We’ll make-believe it’s a bear.” 

Whizz went the two arrows. And then — 

“Yow! Wow! Growl! Howl! Scowl!” 
some one yelled, and the stump rose up on its 
hind legs and came rushing at Toodle and Noo- 
dle. You see it wasn’t a stump at all — it was 
really a bear. 

“Oh, dear!” yelled Noodle dropping his bow 
and arrows. “Come on, Toodle!” 

“Yes, let’s jump in the water, and then the 
bear can’t catch us!” said Toodle. For 


you 


Toodle and Noodle Play Indian 93 

know beavers are very swift in the water, and 
few animals can swim as rapidly as they. 

But alas! Likewise alack-a-day! Before 
Toodle and Noodle could get to the water the 
bear had grabbed them in his hairy paws and 
hugged them. He didn’t hug them because he 
loved them. Oh, no! But because he thought 
he was going to have a good dinner. 

“Oh, yum! Yum!” growled the bear, smiling 
so that he showed his red tongue and white teeth. 

“I can see where my dinner is,” said the bear. 

Toodle looked around, but he could see noth- . 
ing good to eat. He said so to Noodle. 

“I — I guess he means — us!” exclaimed Noo- 
dle, sadly-like. 

“Oh, dear!” cried Toodle. “Now we are in 
trouble! I guess we had better not come to any 
islands after this.” 

“I’ll fix you for shooting your Indian arrows 
at me!” growled the bear. 

“We — we thought you were a stump!” said 
Noodle. 

“Worse and worse! Calling me a stump!” 
cried the bear. “Now I shall certainly frizzle you 
in buttermilk for my lunch.” 

Then the bear picked up Toodle in one paw, 
and Noodle in the other, and off he started with 
them. 

“Where are you taking us, if you please?” 


94 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


asked Noodle, politely. His mamma had taught 
him to be polite, even to a bear. 

“I am going to take you to my den,” said the 
bear. “Then my wife will cook my lunch for 
me.” 

So the bear took the two little beaver boys to 
his den, and as his wife was not at home just 
then, having gone down to the five and ten cent 
store to buy a new pair of slippers, the bear 
said: 

“I’ll just tie you two chaps to a tree until my 
wife gets back!” 

So what did that bear do but take some strong 
telegraph wire and wind it around Toodle and 
Noodle, making them fast to a tree. 

“I suppose I could tie you fast with a piece 
of grapevine,” said the bear, “but I know you 
have sharp teeth, and could soon gnaw your- 
selves loose. But you can’t bite through wire.” 

And Toodle and Noodle knew with sorrow 
that they could not, and the bear knew he could 
go to sleep and safely leave them tied up, which 
is just what he did. 

Down on the ground in front of his den lay 
the bear, and soon he was sound asleep and 
snoring. Toodle and Noodle tried to break 
loose, but the wire was too strong. 

“I — I guess this is the end of us,” said Noo- 
dle sadly. “We are gone!” Toodle thought so, 


Toodle and Noodle Play Indian 


95 


too, and I don’t know what would have hap- 
pened if Nurse Jane Fuzzy- Wuzzy, the kind 
muskrat lady, had not happened to come swim- 
ming along. She had been to market to get 
Uncle Wiggily something for breakfast. 

As soon as Nurse Jane saw poor Noodle and 
Toodle tied up there she came softly out on the 
island, without waking the bear, and then with 
her tail, which is just like a rat-tail file you know, 
Nurse Jane easily cut and filed through that 
telegraph wire in a jiffiy, which is very quickly 
indeed, and soon Toodle and Noodle were all 
loose, the cut ends of the wire being bent back. 

‘‘Quick now!” whispered Nurse Jane. “Let’s 
get away before the bear wakes up, or his wife 
comes back!” And they did, the beaver boys 
and the muskrat lady swimming off under water 
and the muskrat lady swimming off under water. 

So Toodle and Noodle got safely away, 
thanks to Nurse Jane and her file-tail, and when 
that bear woke up, and found his dinner all 
gone he was mad as hops — and there is nothing 
madder than them. But it served him right, I 
think, for being so mean, don’t you? 

And now we have come to the end of this 
story, and I guess you are glad of it. But on 
the page after this, if my new hat blows up on 
top of the flag pole, so the monkey can put his 
peanuts in it, I’ll tell you about Noodle FlaL 
tail’s long swim. 


STORY XIII 


NOODLE’S LONG SWIM 

“Come on, Noodle!” called Toodle Flat-tail, 
the little beaver boy, to his brother one morning 
as he slid down off the roof of the house in the 
pond and slipped into the water with a splash. 
“Come on or you’ll be late for school.” 

“Oh, it’s early yet,” said Noodle. “We’ve 
got lot’s of time. I just want to finish making 
this little canoe out of birch bark. Maybe then 
we can paddle to school.” 

“Swimming is good enough for me,” said 
Toodle, as he took a little ball of soft mud up on 
the end of his flat tail and threw it at his sister 
Crackie. It hit her on the back, but was so soft 
that it did not hurt her. 

Toodle wouldn’t have hurt his little sister 
Crackie for anything — not if you were to give 
him two ice cream cones and part of another one. 

Crackie only laughed, and then she turned a 
peppersault into the water to wash off the mud. 
Beaver children, you know, play in the mud and 
water a good deal of the time, and how they love 

it! Why, you should see them make mud pies, 

96 


Noodle’s Long Swim 


97 


with white stones for raisins. Some day I’ll tell 
you about that. 

“Well, are you coming?” called Toodle to 
Noodle, as he started to swim to school. “You’d 
better, Noodle, or you’ll be late. The first bell 
has rung.” 

“Oh, I’ve got time enough,” spoke the other 
little beaver boy. “I just want to see if my 
birch bark boat will sail.” 

“Well, I’m going, anyway,” said Toodle, and 
away he started. 

“I wish I could go to school,” spoke Crackie, 
sort of sadly like. “I don’t like to stay home 
alone when you boys go away to your lessons.” 

“Never mind,” whispered Grandpa Whack - 
um, the oldest beaver of them all. “Some dav, 
Crackie, you shall go to school, and you’ll learn 
as much as Toodle and Noodle,” and then the 
old gentleman animal gave Crackie a whole ice 
cream cone for herself, and she let it fall on a 
stone and broke it. That’s why she w r as called 
Crackie — she was always dropping things and 
cracking or breaking them. 

But it didn’t hurt the ice cream cone much, 
for only the sharp point was cracked off, and 
the little beaver girl didn’t like that part, any- 
how. None of the ice cream was spilled, I’m 
glad to say. 

So Toodle started off to school, and as he 


98 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


swam away he looked back and called to his 
brother: “You’ll be late, Noodle.” 

“Oh, I guess not,” answered Noodle. “Fm 
coming right along now.” 

Well, Noodle finished making his birch bark 
boat, and it sailed very nicely, but there was 
not enough wind for the beaver boy to sail to 
school in it, so he thought he had better swim. 
He was just starting off, having said good-by 
to his sister Crackie, and he was wondering if 
he knew his spelling lesson, when Mrs. Flat-tail, 
the beaver lady, called out: 

“Oh, I say, Noodle, do you think you’d have 
time to swim over to Mrs. Wible wobble’s, the 
duck lady, and borrow a cupful of salt for me? 
I want to make a sweet-grass pudding and I 
need a little salt for it.” 

“Of course, I’ll go, mamma,” said Noodle. 
“I have time enough, for I’ll swim very fast. 
But I thought you put sugar in pudding, in- 
stead of salt.” 

“Oh, this is a new kind,” said Mrs. Flat-tail. 
“I’ll give you some of the pudding for supper.” 

So Noodle started to swim over to Mrs. 
Wibblewobble’s house. He found the duck lady 
busy in her kitchen, and she got the salt for him, 
putting it in a cup so that it would not spill. 

“You had better hurry,” said Mrs. Wibble- 


99 


Noodle s Long Swim 

wobble to Noodle. “My boy Jimmie started 
for school some time ago.” 

“Oh, I’ll hurry as soon as I go home with this 
salt,” spoke Noodle. 

So off the little beaver boy swam once more, 
but he had not gone very far before he looked 
around behind him, and he saw something com- 
ing after him in the water. He could not see 
exactly who it was — just a sort of little flurry in 
the beaver pond, and Noodle said: 

“Perhaps thit is Nurse Jane Fuzzy- Wuzzy 
or some of my friends. I’ll wait and see.” 

So he swam slowly, and the creature in the 
water swam faster toward him, and then, all of 
a sudden, Noodle saw that it was no friend of 
his at all, but the bad old skillery-scalery alli- 
gator, who was swimming down under water so 
Noodle couldn’t see him so plainly. But the 
alligator happened to stick his nose up for a 
second, to try and bite a flv, and then it was 
that the little beaver boy knew who the bad 
creature was. 

“Mercy me!” cried Noodle. “That alligator 
is after me! And he looks hungry, too. I’ve 
got to swim with all my might to get away from 
him. Oh, dear!” 

Then Noodle began his long swim to get 
away from the bad old alligator. Beavers can 
swim very fast, you know, on top of water, or 


100 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


under it, though when they swim under water 
they have to come up to breathe every once in 
a while. And alligators can swim fast, too. 

So there was a race between Noodle and the 
’gator. The little beaver boy swam on top of 
the water for a while, and then he would dive 
down underneath. And he held his spelling 
book, which had a rubber cover, so it wouldn’t 
get, wet, on top of the cup of salt so no water 
would get in that. 

“Oh, if I can only get home before the alli- 
gator grabs me I’ll be all right,” said Noodle. 

On and on swam Noodle, but home seemed 
far off. Sometimes the beaver bov would dive 
down suddenly, and swim under water. Then, 
for a little while, the alligator would not know 
what had become of Noodle. But soon the bad 
creature, with his long nose, would smell Noo- 
dle in the water and take after him again. 

Noodle swam this way and that, hoping he 
could fool the ’gator, but he couldn’t seem to, 
and Noodle was getting tired, for he had swum 
a long way. It was farther to Mrs. Wibble- 
wobble’s house, and back again, than he had 
thought. 

All at once the ’gator made a big spring, 
giving a jump through the water. He grabbed 
Noodle. 

“Ah, ha!” the bad creature cried. “Now I 


Noodle’s Long Swim 


101 


have you! You gave me a long chase but I have 
you!” 

Poor Noodle didn’t know what to do. There 
he was caught; and he couldn’t go to school any 
more, and he could not go home to give his 
mamma the cup of salt and — 

‘'Ha!” thought Noodle suddenly. “The salt! 
Maybe if I throw it in the ’gator’s eyes it will 
make him sneeze, and he will let me go!” 

No sooner said than done. Just as the ’gator 
was opening his mouth to show N oodle his sharp 
teeth and red tongue, the little beaver boy 
quickly tossed the cup of salt right into the eyes 
and nose and mouth of Mr. Alligator. 

“ A-ker-choo ! F oo-do-do ! Ker-snoo-ker- 
choo!” sneezed the ’gator, and he w r as so excited 
that he let go of Noodle to reach for his own 
pocket handkerchief. That was just what the 
little beaver boy wanted, and a second later he 
had dived down and swum away. 

And the alligator couldn’t get Noodle again, 
either, for he couldn’t see with all that salt in 
his eyes, so Noodle swam safely back to his 
beaver house again. 

He had lost the salt, of course, but Mrs. Flat- 
tail said that was all right, as she would go her- 
self and borrow some more of Mrs. Littletail, 
the rabbit lady. 

“And you had better hurry on to school, and 


102 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


don't let any more alligators chase you,” said 
Noodle’s mamma to him. 

“I won’t,” he answered, and on he went to 
school, safely and he didn’t miss a single lesson. 
I’m glad to say, getting there just as the last 
bell rang, so he wasn’t even late. 

And on the next page, if a little girl named 
Elizabeth doesn’t turn my typewriter upside 
down to take the ribbon off it for her lollypop 
doll, I’ll tell you about Toodle Flat-tail’s fire 
engine. 









STORY XIV 


TOODUfrS FIRE ENGINE 

One day, in school where Toodle and Noodle 
Flat-tail, the beaver boys, went to learn their 
lessons, Sammie Littletail, the boy rabbit, 
seemed very much excited. 

And it was not about his lessons, either, 
though Sammie was a very smart little school- 
rabbit. No, it was something else, and pretty 
soon old Mr. Water Rat, who taught the class, 
noticed that Sammie was not paying any atten- 
tion to his school work. Instead of trying to 
find out how many apples there would be left 
if you took three potatoes from half a dozen 
carrots, Sammie was looking at something un- 
der his desk. 

“Sammie Littletail, what have you there?” 
asked Mr. Rat, after a bit. 

“A water- pistol, if you please, sir,” said the 
rabbit boy, very politely. 

“Humph!” exclaimed Mr. Rat. “A school is 
no place for water-pistols. You may bring it 
here, Sammie, and then you had better study 
your lessons.” 

So Sammie had to bring his water-pistol up 

103 


104 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


to the teacher’s desk, and Toodle and Noodle 
Flat-tail, and all the other animal boys and 
girls, looked on. And Sammie got all red 
around his ears, he was so ashamed like. 

“Oh, dear!” thought Toodle Flat-tail the 
beaver boy, as Sammie gave up the toy, “a real 
water-pistol. It’s too bad teacher has it, for 
he won’t know how to have fun with it. I wish 
Sammie hadn’t taken it out; and maybe he’d 
have let me play with it after school. But now 
it’s gone and the teacher won’t give it back until 
vacation. Oh, dear!” 

Sammie, himself, felt badly about his water- 
pistol, too. But then he knew he should not 
have taken it out in school. And so the lessons 
went on. 

“Where did you get the water-pistol, Sam- 
mie?” asked Toodle Flat-tail of the boy rabbit, 
at recess. 

“Uncle Wiggily Longears gave it to me,” 
said Sammie. “It was a fine one, too. There 
was a rubber ball on it, and when you squeezed 
the ball and put the small end of the pistol in 
the water it sucked up a lot of it. Then, when 
you squeezed the rubber ball again, the water 
would shoot out like anything. But now it can’t, 
’cause Professor Rat has my water-pistol.” 

“Yes, it’s surely too bad!” said Toodle. 
“I’ve been saving up for one a long time, but 


Toodle’s Fire Engine 


105 


I haven’t got my water-pistol yet.” 

All the animal boys talked about how unlucky 
it was for Sammie’s pistol to be taken away from 
him, and they all said they thought maybe if 
Sammie asked Mr. Rat, the teacher, he would 
give it back. 

So Sammie did, after school, and Mr. Rat, 
being a very kind animal gentleman, said: 

“Well, Sammie, if you promise not to bring 
the water pistol to school again you may have 
it back.” 

Of course Sammie promised, and then he had 
his toy again. He let all the animal boys take 
turns squirting it, and when it came to Toodle 
Flat-tail, the little beaver chap said: 

“What’ll you sell this water-pistol for, Sam- 
mie? I’ll give you my new pop gun, and the 
birch bark whistle I made.” 

“All right,” answered Sammie. “I’ll trade 
you. I’m getting tired of my water-pistol, any- 
how.” 

So that’s how Toodle got the water-squirting- 
pistol that he wanted so very much, and he had 
a lot of fun with it. But he was very careful 
not to bring it to school with him, for he did 
not want Mr. Rat to take it away. Toodle and 
Noodle played with it around the house, and 
the best part of it was that their mamma didn’t 
mind how much water they squirted, for beav- 


106 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


ers live in the pond, you know, and they are 
wet more than half the time. Only the upper 
part of their house is out of the pond, and to 
get in through the front door you have to dive 
down under water. Isn’t that odd? 

Well, Toodle and Noodle had a lot of fun 
with the water-pistol, and Toodle let his sister 
Crackie shoot it once or twice. She was careful 
not to let it fall, I’m glad to say, so that it did 
not get broken. 

“Let’s play a game with it,” said Noodle after 
a bit. “I’ll make believe I’m a funny old sea 
lion who comes to your house while you’re asleep, 
to try and get in. And you must wake up, and 
pretend to be scared, and shoot at me with the 
water-pistol.” 

“I will!” cried Toodle, and the two beaver 
brothers had lots of fun playing that game. 

And now something is going to happen. I 
wish I didn’t have to tell about it, but I do, 
for I have promised that I wouldn’t leave any- 
thing out of these stories, so I have to put the 
bad part in with the good. But I’ll make it 
come out as nicely as I can at the end. 

A few days after Toodle had got the water- 

pistol from Sammie Littletail, Noodle Flat-tail 

found some old firecrackers that had been left 

over from the Fourth of Julv. Thev had fallen 

•/ «' 

down a crack in the floor, and there they had 


Toodle’s Fire Engine 


107 


been hiding ever since. Firecrackers always 
like to sleep in cracks you know. 

“Oh, goodie!” cried Noodle. “Come on, 
Toodle. We’ll fire them off and have a lot of 
fun. We’ll make believe having a war, and 
shooting, and all that.” 

Mrs. Flat-tail didn’t happen to be home just 
then, or I think she would not have let the boys 
take matches and start to shoot the firecrackers. 
Toodle and Noodle didn’t mean to do wrong, 
but you know how it is yourself, sometimes. 

So they shot off the old firecrackers, and 
some of them made a loud noise. It grew dark 
before the beaver boys had finished, and the 
sparks from the crackers looked quite pretty. 

Then Mr. Flat-tail came home and heard, 
and saw, what the boys were doing. He said: 

“Oh, Toodle and Noodle, you must stop this 
at once! You might set the house on fire!” 

“Well, if we did, I could put it out with my 
water pistol,” Toodle said with a laugh. 

“But, anyhow, we haven’t any more fire- 
crackers left,” said Noodle. 

“I’m glad of it,” spoke his father. 

And that night, when Toodle went to bed he 
put his water pistol, all filled with a lot of ice 
water, right near him on a chair. 

“For,” he said, “maybe the bad old fox might 


108 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


try to get in tonight, and, if he did, I could 
squirt water in his eyes, and scare him.” 

But something else happened. I guess it was 
worse than a fox, for, all of a sudden, when it 
was all dark and quiet, and the beavers were 
asleep, Grandpa Whackum, the oldest beaver of 
them all, awakened, and cried out: 

“Fire! Fire! Fire! I smell smoke. The 
house is on fire!” 

That w T oke everybody else up, of course, and 
such a running around as there was! Surely 
enough the beaver house — that is, the dry top 
part that was out of water — was on fire, and it 
smelled like firecrackers, too. You know how 
they smell. 

“Oh, dear!” cried Mr. Flat-tail. “That’s how 
it happened. Some of the firecracker sparks got 
under the roof, and they glowed and smoked 
until they have set fire to our house. Oh boys!” 

Of course Noodle and Toodle felt very badly 
about this, even though they had not meant to 
do it. 

“Come, hurry out everybody!” cried Grandpa 
Whackum, and he helped Mrs. Flat-tail and 
little Crackie to get out. The fire was quite hot 
now r , and a lot of the other beavers woke up. 

“Call the fire engines!” some one cried. 

“No — don’t do that!” suddenly shouted Too- 
dle. “I have a little fire engine of my own. My 


Toodle’s Fire Engine 


109 


water-pistol! I’ll put out the fire with that.' 
He had taken it with him when he rushed from 
the burning house, and now he began to squirt 
the water on the blaze — the water in his pistol. 
My how Toodle did squirt his water-pistol! 
And in a few minutes the fire was out, the house 
was not burned much and the beavers could go 
back in it. 

So that’s how Toodle and Noodle accidentally 
set fire to the house and how Toodle put it out 
with his water-pistol, which was as good as a 
fire-engine, wasn’t it? 

And in the next story, if the door bell doesn’t 
knock all the salt out of the pepper caster, and 
make the window get a pain in its toothache, 
I’ll tell you about Toodle and Noodle helping 
Billie Bushy tail. 


STORY XV 


TOODLE AND NOODLE HELP BILLIE 

Toodle and Noodle, the two little beaver boys, 
were on their way to school one morning. It 
was rather cool, for Jack Frost, the gentleman, 
who makes the icicles and snow balls and ice 
cream cones, had been flying around in the night 
and had left some of his finger marks on the 
window panes. 

So Toodle and Noodle were hurrying along, 
with their paws in their pockets to keep them 
warm, and they tucked in their books as best 
they could. 

“There’ll be skating soon,” said Toodle to 
Noodle. 

“Yes, and snow-balling and sliding down hill 
and all that,” said Noodle to Toodle. 

“Bur-r-r-r-r ! don’t speak of winter!” cried a 
voice behind an old stump that Toodle and 
Noodle had just passed. “You young chaps 
don’t know what it means to have snow and ice 
and all that.” 

Toodle and Noodle stopped short. They 

looked at each other and then they looked around 

the corner at the stump. 

no 


Toodle and Noodle Help Billie 111 


“Do you s’pose that’s a bear?” asked Toodle 
( Noodle. 

“Maybe it’s a wolf,” said Noodle to Toodle. 

“Ha! Ha!” laughed a voice behind the stump, 
and out popped Grandpa Whackum, the oldest 
beaver gentleman of them all. “I didn’t mean 
to frighten you, Toodle and Noodle,” he said, 
“but when I heard you talking about snow and 
ice I just couldn’t help calling out. You see 
winter makes a lot of trouble for us. Some- 
times the beaver pond freezes so hard that we 
can’t swim in it. 

“Of course we can stay in our houses and 
sleep during the winter, but even that makes 
it very hard. We have to dive down under the 
icy water to get at the soft pieces of bark we 
have stored away to eat, and in winter the hunt- 
ers come with their traps and dogs to catch us. 
Oh, ice and snow are not as much fun as boys 
and girls think they are. 

“But never mind. We all want you to have 
as much fun as you can, even if it does get cold. 
So run along to school now, and when winter 
really comes, I’ll show you how to make a sled 
out of a piece of hickory bark and skates out 
of some old bones.” 

So Toodle and Noodle hurried on, getting 
nice and warm as they hopped, skipped and 


112 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


jumped, as they talked about snow and ice and 
sleds and skates and all things like that. 

“Do you s’pose any dogs and hunters will 
come after us this winter?” asked Toodle of 
Noodle. 

“I hope not,” said Noodle to Toodle. “We 
must have some lessons in how to keep out of 
traps, and what to do when dogs chase us.” 

“Yes, Grandpa Whackum will teach us,” said 
Toodle. 

Well, the beaver boys kept on going to 
school, and they were about half way there 
when, all of a sudden, Toodle called out: 

“Look there!” 

“Why, it’s Billie Bushytail, the squirrel boy,” 
said Noodle. “And he’s carrying a big bag of 
something.” 

“Let’s see what he’s got,” suggested Toodle. 
“Maybe it’s a present for teacher.” 

So they ran up to Billie and called: 

“What you got, Billie?” 

“Oh, what haven’t I got,” answered the little 
boy squirrel. “I’ve got handkerchiefs, and 
combs and brushes, and nuts, and some dishes 
and — oh, dear! I don’t know what all is in this 
bag.” 

“Why, where did you get it?” asked Noodle. 

“It’s from our house — where we live in the 
old oak tree, you know. We’re moving away 


Toodle and Noodle Help Billie 113 


from there, and Johnnie, my brother, and I 
have to help carry the stuff. Oh, I’d a good 
deal rather go to school.” 

“What!” cried Noodle. “Don’t you have to 
go to school?” 

“Of course, not — on moving day,” answered 
Billie. “I got an excuse from teacher. Johnnie 
and I are both staying home.” 

“I wish we were moving,” said Toodle, look- 
ing at Noodle. 

“So do I,” said Noodle, looking at Toodle. 
“Then we wouldn’t have to go to school. Where 
are you moving to, Billie?” 

“To the old hollow stump, next door to where 
Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow, the puppy dog 
boys, live,” answered the little squirrel. “Oh, 
say, but this bag is heavy!” 

“Let us help you carry it,” said Toodle. 
“We’d like to; wouldn’t we, Noodle?” 

“Indeed, we would!” cried the other little 
beaver boy. “Mamma has always told us to help 
our friends when we could . I’ll carry it part 
way, Billie—” 

“And I’ll carry it the rest of the way!” inter- 
rupted Noodle, before Toodle could finish. “You 
just let us take it, Billie.” 

So the squirrel boy gave the bag to Toodle — 
the bag that was filled with needles and pins, and 
combs and brushes, and little salt cellars and odds 


114 


Toodle and Noodle Flat- Tail 


and ends that Mr. and Mrs. Bushytail, the 
squirrel lady and gentleman, did not want to 
pack in the wagon that Old Dog Percival 
brought to move them in. 

You know how it is when you move — there 
are always some little things left out. Why I 
remember once, when we moved up from the 
seashore, I left out my hat on the clothes post 
and I had to go all the way back for it, and a 
big wave nearly washed my face and — 

But there, I started to tell you about Toodle 
and Noodle helping Billie, not about myself. 

On and on went the two little beaver boys and 
the little squirrel chap. And surely enough, just 
as they had said they would, Toodle carried Bil- 
lie’s bag part of the way, and then it would be 
Noodle’s turn, and he would take it. Billie car- 
ried the books of the beaver boys, and every 
once in a while he would open the covers, look 
over the pages and say: 

“Oh, my! But I’m glad now, I don’t have to 
go to school!” 

“I — I wish we didn’t!” said Toodle with a 
sigh. 

“So do I,” said Noodle. 

On and on went the two beaver boys, helping 
Billie Bushytail. The bag was heavy, for it had 
a lot of things in it, but Toodle and Noodle did 


Toodle and Noodle Help Billie 115 


not mind that, for they were so glad to help 
Billie. 

Then, all of a sudden, just as the three of them 
were passing a hole in the fence, out jumped a 
big bad old fox, and he made a grab for Toodle. 
But Toodle happened to be carrying the moving 
bag just then, and he banged the fox on the nose 
with it, and a hair brush which was in the bag 
struck the bad animal on his eye, and the fox 
cried out: 

“Oh, excuse me! I guess I made a mistake!” 
and away he ran as fast as he could, and didn’t 
bother Billie or Toodle or Noodle any more that 
day. 

Well, pretty soon the three of them reached 
the old hollow stump where the Bushy tail family 
was to move in, and there was Johnny Bushy tail, 
with another bag full of stuff, and Old Dog Per- 
cival with a whole wagon load and the squirrel 
papa and mamma with their paws full of the 
things they had moved from their house. 

“It was awfully good of you two beaver boys 
to help me carry my bag,” said Billie. “Thank 
you very much.” 

“Oh, we liked to do it,” said Toodle. 

“Sure we did,” spoke Noodle. “May we help 
you carry in some of the moving things, Mrs. 
Bushvtail.” 

“Yes, I guess so,” said the squirrel lady, not 


110 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 




(( i 


stopping to think that maybe the beaver boys 
ought to go to school. 

So Toodle and Noodle helped the squirrel 
family move, and, all at once, when everything 
was inside the hollow stump house, Toodle cried: 
Oh, Noodle! We forgot all about school!” 
So we did!” said Toodle. “Let’s go now. 
Maybe we won’t be very late.” 

So they went to school, but they got there very, 
very late indeed, and when Mr. Rat, the teacher, 
asked them what had happened, Noodle said: 

“We were helping Billie Bushytail move. He 
didn’t have to come to school, and we — ” 

“We wished we didn’t either,” interrupted 
Toodle. “And— and— ” 

“I see,” said Mr. Rat, with a smile that went 
away up under his whiskers. “Well, it is so late 
now there is no use in your coming to school at 
all. I’ll excuse you for today, but don’t be be- 
hind paws again.” 

“We won’t!” exclaimed Toodle, and Noodle 
said: “Oh, goodie!” and then they ran off to 
play ‘with the squirrel brothers at their new 
house, and had lots of fun. So that’s how Toodle 
and Noodle helped Billie, and in the next story, 
if the scrubbing brush doesn’t go out sleigh-rid- 
ing on the front porch with the sofa cushion. I’ll 
tell you about Crackie’s secret. 


STORY XVI 


CRACKIE FLAT-TAIl/s SECRET 

“Don’t tell Toodle and Noodle; will you, 
mamma?” asked Crackie Flat-tail, the little 
beaver girl, as her two brothers popped into the 
kitchen where she was talking to Mrs. Flat-tail 
one morning. “Don’t you let them know any- 
thing about it; will you?” 

“No, indeed!” exclaimed the beaver lady with 
a smile at her little girl, and then one for each 
of the boys. “I’ll not whisper a word, Crackie!” 

“Huh! A secret!” exclaimed Toodle. “Se- 
crets are only for girls, anyhow. And they al- 
ways tell ’em, so they aren’t secrets any more; I 
don’t care!” 

“You can tell me and I won’t tell. Honest I 
w r on’t! Cross my tail!” exclaimed Noodle. “Do 
you want to tell me, Crackie?” and he sidled up 
to his sister as he asked her. 

“Nope! I’m not going to tell — at least not 
now,” answered Crackie. 

“I — I know where there’s a nice sweet piece 
of aspen bark, Crackie,” went on Noodle. “If 
you want to tell me the secret I’ll show you where 
the bark is, Crackie.” 


117 


118 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


“Nope!” said the little beaver girl, laughing. 
“I can’t tell you until it’s ready, anyhow, and 
now I must go to the store to get some — ” 

“Look out, Crackie!” exclaimed Mrs. Flat- 
tail, “or you’ll tell your secret before you know 
it.” 

“Oh, then I’m going to hurry right away,” 
said Crackie, “and you boys had better go to 
school, or you’ll be late, won’t they, mamma?” 

“I guess so,” answered Mrs. Flat-tail. “Run 
along Toodle and Noodle.” 

The two beaver boys looked at their little sis- 
ter, who was named Crackie because she so often 
dropped things and cracked them — such things 
as cups and saucers and once in a while she’d 
drop her doll. But then this was a rubber baby, 
and it did not so much matter, for they can’t 
crack until they get very old, and Crackie ’s rub- 
ber doll w T as quite young. 

“I wonder what it was Crackie didn’t want 
mamma to tell us?” spoke Toodle as he got his 
books ready to go to school. 

“I don’t know,” answered his brother Noodle, 
“but we’ll find out when we come home from 
our lessons.” 

“That’s what we will,” answered Toodle. 
“But come on now. We don’t want to be late 
the way we were the other day when we helped 
Billie Bushytail move.” ? 


Crackie Flat-Tail’s Secret 


119 


“No indeed!” said Noodle. 

So off the beaver boys swam to school. They 
swam instead of walking, you know, because 
they lived in a house that was in the middle of a 
pond of water, and the only way they could get 
to shore was by swimming. 

And the school was in an old boat, as I have 
told you before, and Professor Rat was the 
teacher. Sometimes the old boat would float 
away, and none of the school children could find 
it. Then there would be no lessons that day. 
And oh, how sorry those animal children were 
that they could not go to school! Oh, dear me, 
yes indeed ! I guess so ! 

But this didn’t happen to be one of the days 
when the school was lost, and soon Toodle and 
Noodle had reached the place, meeting a num- 
ber of their friends and having a good time. 

But, all the while, Toodle and Noodle were 
wondering what their mamma and sister Crackie 
had been talking about in the kitchen, and why 
it was they weren’t let into the secret. In fact, 
Toodle and Noodle thought so much about it 
that they didn’t 

And when Professor Rat asked Noodle: 
“How much are two apples and one apple?” 

Noodle answered: “It’s a secret.” 

“What !” exclaimed the teacher, surprised like. 
“A secret! Why every one knows what the an- 


study as they should have done. 


120 


Toodle and Noodle Flat- Tail 


swer is. And what every one knows is no se- 
cret. Susie Littletail, you may tell us how much 
one apple and two apples are.” 

“Three,” said Susie. 

“Exactly,” went on Professor Rat. “So you 
see it was no secret. Noodle Flat-tail.” 

“Oh, I guess I was thinking of something 
else,” replied the little beaver boy. 

“Well, in school you must think only about 
your lessons,” said Mr. Rat. And that is very 
true. I only tell you that about Noodle to show 
how much he was thinking of what Crackie had 
said. How he did wish he knew the secret! 

But now I must tell you about Crackie her- 
self. The little beaver girl did not go to school, 
being too small, but she was big enough to go to 
the store, and that is where she swam after Too- 
dle and Noodle had left. And Crackie bought 
sugar and spice, and everything nice, just as it 
tells about in the story book, and home she went 
with them. 

“Now, mamma,” she said, “you show me how 
and I’ll make it, and when Toodle and Noodle 
come home they’ll be so surprised! Won’t they, 
mamma?” 

“Indeed they will, Crackie,” said the beaver 
ladv. 

So she and Crackie began to make it . What’s 
that? You want to know what it was? Oh, I’m 


Crackie Flat-Tail’s Secret 


121 


not allowed to tell, for it’s still a secret, you 
know. But in a little while you shall find out. 
Anyhow, I’m allowed to tell you this much. 
When it was all done Mrs. Flat-tail put IT in 
the oven, and — Well, I’ll give you three guesses, 
not another one. 

Anyhow, when it was in the oven Crackie said : 

“Well, I guess I’ll go out and play a little bit, 
mamma. I’ll go see Jennie Chipmunk. She is 
ill today and didn’t go to school. I’ll be back 
when it’s done.” 

Off swam Crackie, and soon she and Jennie 
’were having a fine time playing under the trees ; 
for beavers play out on dry land as well as in 
the water. Jennie felt better after school was 
out. I’ve often heard of real boys and girls who 
’were just like that. 

By and by Crackie went back home, and 
when her mamma opened the oven door there 
came out the loveliest smell you can imagine. 

“Oh, goodie!” cried Crackie. “It’s all done, 

and how nice and brown it is. Now I’m going 

to fool the bovs.” 

%/ 

So what did she do but take the secret out of 
the oven, her mamma helping her, of course, 
and then Crackie wrapped it all up in a nice clean 
paper and a clean cloth — the secret, you know- — 
not the oven. 

And when the secret was all wrapped up. 


122 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


Crackie took it outside in the yard and she made 
a big mud pie — a pie out of nice clean mud, such 
as the beaver animals use to plaster their houses. 
Inside the mud pie Crackie put her secret, and 
then she waited for Toodle and Noodle to come 
home from school. 

The beaver boys were not long in coming, 
either. They did not stop much to play on the 
way, for they were very anxious to find out the 
secret. Soon they were at their house. Out in 
front was Crackie, making believe stuff sugar 
plums in her mud pie. The sugar plums were 
only stones, but it was easy enough to pretend 
with them. I’ve often done it. 

“Where’s the secret?” cried Toodle. 

“Oh, Crackie, are you going to tell us?” said 
Noodle. 

“There it is,” said Crackie, and she pointed 
to the mud pie she had made. 

“That!” cried Noodle. 

“Pooh! What a secret!” exclaimed Toodle. 

“Wouldn’t you like a piece?” asked Crackie, 
and she looked over at her mother and smiled. 
Mrs. Flat-tail laughed. Toodle and Noodle 
looked disappointed-like. 

“Only a mud pie,” said Noodle. 

“Come on, let’s play ball,” suggested Toodle. 

“You’d better wait until I cut my mud pie,” 
said Crackie, and then, while her brothers watched 


Crackie Flat-Tail’s Secret 


123 


she broke open the mud pie, which she had baked 
hard and dry in the sun, and there, inside it, 
covered over with clean, green grape leaves, 
was a lovely apple pie, all brown and sugary, 
with birch-bark frosting in one place, and water- 
cress candy in another, and inside — oh, my! I 
can’t write any more about it, for it makes me 
too hungry. 

“That’s my secret!” said Crackie. “I baked 
the real pie all by myself, only mamma helped 
me, of course. And I put it inside the mud pie 
just for fun. I wrapped it up so it wouldn’t 
get soiled. Will you have some, boys?” 

“Will we!” cried Toodle, quickly. 

“I guess we will!” shouted Noodle, and they 
both together kissed little Crackie. And then 
they ate a piece of her secret pie. Wasn’t that 
nice? I think so, even if I did write this storv 
myself. And on the next page, if the coffee 
strainer doesn’t take the piano out to a moving 
picture show and leave it there for the banana 
man, I’ll tell you about Toodle and the big log. 


STORY XVII 


TOODLE AXD THE BIG LOG 

One day, when Toodle and Noodle Flat-tail, 
the little beaver boys, were on their way to 
school, Grandpa Whackum, the oldest beaver 
gentleman in the beaver town, called to them: 

“I say, boys, when you come home from school 
this afternoon I’ll have something for you to do.’’ 

“Is it a secret?” asked Noodle, wishing he did 
not have to go to school that day, for he didn’t 
know his reading lesson. 

“No, not a secret,” answered Grandpa 
Whackum. “But swim along now. “I’ll tell 
you when you come home.” 

“If it is a secret I hope it’s one like Crackie’s 
apple-mud pie,” spoke Toodle. “Oh, wasn’t that 
good?” he asked his brother. 

“Yum! Yum!” exclaimed Noodle, smacking 
his lips, and flopping his big tail up and down. 
“I should say it was! I wish we had some now, 
and a piece for recess.” 

“So do I,” went on Toodle. “Well, anyhow, 
if we go somewhere with Grandpa Whackum 
he’s sure to treat us. Maybe he’ll get us ice 
cream cones.” 


124 


Toodle and the Big Log 


125 


“It’s getting too cold for them,” spoke Noo- 
dle. “I’d rather have some candied water-lily 
roots, or maybe a birch bark lolly-pop.” 

“Oh, I guess I would, too,” said his brother. 

Well, they went on and on to school, but in 
the night the wind had blown pretty hard, and 
the schoolhouse, which, as I have told you, was 
in an old boat, had drifted off. So Toodle and 
Noodle couldn’t find it right away. Neither 
could some of the other animal boys and girls 
who were on their way to recite their lessons. 

“Let’s look over this way for it,” said Bully 
No-Tail, the frog, pointing one paw toward an 
old stump where a bear used to live. But the 
bear had gone off to act in a circus so he wasn’t 
there any more. “Let’s look over that way,” 
went on Bully. “Maybe the boat is hidden be- 
hind the bushes.” 

“Oh, no, don’t let’s look any more,” suggested 
Jillie Longtail, the mousie girl. “I — I don’t 
want to go to school, anyhow.” 

“Neither do I,” added Toodle. “Besides, 
we’ve looked pretty good, anyhow, and if we 
can’t find it it isn’t our fault,” 

Well, some of the other animal children said 
the same thing, and they were just thinking 
about giving up the search for the school-boat, 
when along it came floating in the pond, and out 
in front was Professor Rat himself. 


126 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


“Good morning, children!” exclaimed Profes- 
sor Rat. 

“Good morning, teacher!” said all the animal 
children, sort of disappointed like. 

“I’m sorry I am late bringing the school to 
you this morning,” went on Mr. Rat, “and I 
would have been later only Miss Jane Fuzzy - 
Wuzzy kindly pulled the school along for me. 
It had drifted away off this time.” 

“Indeed it had,” said Nurse Jane Fuzzy- Wuz- 
zy, who used to take care of Uncle Wiggily 
Longears, the rabbit gentleman, when he had the 
rheumatism. “But now, children, you have your 
school back again, and I hope you also have your 
lessons. Good-by.” 

Off swam Nurse Jane, and some of the animal 
children — in fact, all of them, thanked her kindly, 
as did Professor Rat. Still, all the children 
would have been more thankful if Nurse Jane 
had not brought the school to them. But there 
it was, and inside they had to go to study their 
lessons. 

But I started to tell you about Toodle and the 
big log, and it’s about time I began, isn’t it? 

By and by, after a while, not so very long, 
school was out, and Toodle and Noodle hurried 
home, for they wanted to find out what Grandpa 
Whackum wanted of them. 




Toodle and the Big Log 


127 


Soon the two boys saw the old heaver gentle- 
man waiting for them, and as they swam up to 
him, Grandpa Whackum said: 

‘Now, boys, you know winter will soon be here, 
and we beavers must begin to store away the 
things that we are going to eat when the cold 
weather comes. Real people put a lot of coal in 
their cellars, but in our cellars we will put sticks 
and logs of wood, covered with bark, and we will 
eat this bark all winter. 

“We will store it down under the water, 

where, even when the pond is covered with ice, 

we can get it. And besides logs and sticks of 

wood, we can also eat grass and roots that grow 

on the bottom of the pond. But we must have 

lots of bark. So now if vou will come with me to 

•/ 

the woods, we’ll gnaw down some trees and bring 
them home to put in the cellar for winter. That 
is something all young beavers must learn, and 
it is time you began.” 

“All right,” said Toodle. 

“We’ll be glad to come with you,” said Noodle. 
And he smiled, for he saw, sticking from his 
grandpa’s pocket, some nice, sweet, juicy, mush- 
room lollypops, which he and his brother like very 
much. 

Well, soon Toodle and Noodle were in the 
woods gnawing down little trees with their four 
sharp orange-colored front teeth, about which I 


128 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


have told you. Grandpa Whackum also gnawed 
down trees with his teeth. 

By and by, somehow or other, Toodle wan- 
dered away from his grandpa and brother, and 
soon he was in a lonely part of the forest. But 
he didn’t mind that — at least not just then. 

“Ah, there is a fine big aspen tree!” exclaimed 
Toodle, as he looked at a large one. “That will 
be dandy for us this winter. I’ll gnaw that 
down.” 

And he started to do it, sitting on his broad, 
flat tail, which was like a stool for him, as I have 
told you before. 

Soon Toodle had almost cut the tree down, 
and when it began to fall he hurried out of the 
way, and whacked with his tail on the ground, to 
give warning to any other beavers, that might 
be nearby, to get out of the way. But Toodle 
was all alone. None of his animal friends was 
in sight. 

When the tree was down Toodle tried to drag 
it toward the pond, so it would float like a boat 
to his house. But Toodle found that the tree 
was too heavy for him to pull. He wished he 
had not cut down such a big one, but he did not 
want to have to ask his grandpa and brother to 
help him. Toodle was sort of proud, you know, 
and he wanted to get this large log to his house 


Toodle and the Big Log 


129 


ali by himself, jast as you want to do things all 
for your own self sometimes. 

“Well, I can cut the top branches off and then 
I think I can pull the rest of the log,” said 
Toodle. 

So, sitting down on his tail again, Toodle 
gnawed the top off the log. Then he thought 
surely he could pull it to the water. But though 
he strained and tugged and pushed and pulled 
with all his might, still he couldn’t do it. 

“I guess, after all. I’ll have to get grandpa to 
help me,” he said. “But I don’t want to. I’ll 
try once more.” 

My! how hard Toodle tried. And just as he 
was going to give up, and call his brother to help 
him, out of the bushes jumped a big black bear. 

“Oh, dear!” cried Toodle. “Now I am a 
goner ! This bear will get me surely !” and he was 
so frightened that he couldn’t jump into the 
water and swim away; this little beaver boy 
couldn’t. He just sat there shivering and sort 
of hiding down behind the log, hoping the bear 
hadn’t seen him. But the bear had, and the bear 
said: 

“Ah, ha! There you are!” 

“Ye — yes,” stammered Toodle. “Are you go- 
ing to — going to eat me — all up?” 

“Why, no, indeed!” laughed the bear in a jolly 
voice. “I just came to help you, Toodle. I have 


130 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


been watching you trying to roll that big log into 
the water. It is too much for you, so I’ll help. 
Let me get hold of it.” 

So the bear stuck his long claws into the log 
and he pushed, and Toodle pulled, and in a jiffy, 
which is a very short time, indeed, that log was 
in the water. Then Toodle could very easily 
swim along and push it with his paws. 

“Thank you very much — thank you twice, Mr. 
Bear,” he called out. 

“Why twice?” asked the bear, wiggling his 
short tail. 

“Once for not eating me,” said Toodle, “and 
once for helping me.” 

“Pray do not mention it,” said the bear, blink- 
ing both eyes. And then he went back in the 
woods to go to sleep. 

So that’s how Toodle gnawed down a big log, 
and how he got it home with the help of the kind 
bear. And Noodle and Grandpa Whackum 
were very much surprised when Toodle told 
them about it. 

And in the next story — that is if the clothespin 
doesn’t pinch the table leg and make it dance so 
the sugar bowl rolls off and tickles the parlor rug 
— I’ll tell you about Noodle finding a trap. 


STORY XVIII 


NOODLE AND THE TRAP 

“Boys, come over here, I want to give you a 
talking to,” said Grandpa Whackum, the oldest 
beaver of them all. He spoke to Toodle and 
Noodle, the little boy beavers, one morning when 
there was no school. 

“A — a talking to,” said Toodle. 

“I wonder if we’ve been bad?” asked Noodle. 

“Nonsense! Bad? Of course not,” said 
Grandpa Whackum, who heard what his little 
grandson said. “I just want to give you a little 

lesson.” 

“Lessons today — when it’s Saturday, and 
there’s no school?” cried Noodle. 

“Oh, don’t be worried!” exclaimed Grandpa 
Whackum, who had such a funny name because 
he used to whack his big tail on the ground (mak- 
ing a noise like a bass drum in the circus) when- 
ever there was any danger. That’s the way he 
used to warn the other beavers to look out. So 
his name was Whackum. Some of vou mav, 
perhaps have thought he was called that because 

he used to whack the little beavers. Never! 

131 


132 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


Grandpa Whackum never did that. He gave 
them ice cream cones, or lollypops, instead. 

‘ 'Don’t be worried,” said Grandpa Whackum 
to Toodle and Noodle, who were almost like 
twins — but not quite. “This will not be a very 
hard lesson. Besides, animal children, you know, 
have to always learn things — whether in school 
or not. And, for that matter, so do real children. 
Your school teacher can tell you how to add up 
two apples and three apples, and how to spell 
cat and dog and boy, and things like that. But 
she can’t always be with you, to teach you how 
to look out for danger, and how to be polite — 
though, of course, all school teachers are always 
polite themselves — and she can’t teach you how 
to eat nicely at the table. 

“These things have to be done at home,” said 
Grandpa Whackum, “and so, you see, there are 
lessons on Saturdays and Sundays, too, as well 
as on school days.” 

“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Toodle, looking to see 
if Noodle was stepping on his tail — but he was 
not. 

“So we’ve got to study!” spoke Noodle, with 
a sigh. 

“Oh, not very much,” said their Grandpa 
Whackum. “I am just going to give you a few 
lessons in how to keep out of danger. And one 
big danger is traps.” 


Noodle and the Trap 


133 


‘'Traps, eh?” asked Toodle. “Are there any 
around here?” and he looked all about him. 

“You never can tell,” replied Grandpa 
Whackum. “It is coming on winter now, and 
you know we beavers get our thicker coats of fur 
then to keep us warm. And whenever our fur 
gets nice and thick hunters like to catch us, take 
off our fur and make muffs and caps and over- 
coats of it.” 

“Does it hurt to have your fur taken off?” 
asked Toodle. 

“I should say so!” cried Grandpa Whackum. 
“Of course I never had it done to me, but lots of 
my friends have, and they never lived after it. 
So look out for hunters and dogs. And when a 
hunter hasn’t a gun he may have a trap.” 

“What’s a trap?” asked Noodle. 

“A trap,” answered Grandpa Whackum, “is 
something made of steel, with strong springs. 
Hunters put them near our houses, or where we 
have to walk along near the dam that holds in 
the waters of our pond. They cover up their 
traps, and if you are not careful you may step 
into one. 

“As soon as you do, snap! it goes shut, catch- 
ing you by the leg. And, unless you can pull 
your leg out you’re caught. Then along comes 
the hunter, and — well, the next part isn’t nice to 
talk about, so we’ll skip that,” said Grandpa 


134 


Toodle and Noodle Flat- Tail 


Whackum. “Anyhow, you want to keep away 
from traps, and today I’ll give you a lesson in 
how to do it.” 

Well, Toodle and Noodle thought it wouldn't 
be so bad after all, to have a lesson on Saturday, 
when there was no school, so they followed after 
Grandpa Whackum. 

The old beaver gentleman led Toodle and 
Noodle off through the woods, and along the 
edge of the beaver pond. He walked on ahead 
in order to be the first one to see the traps. 

“For you know,” he said to Toodle and Noo- 
dle, “you may step into a trap before you see 
it. They may be hidden under leaves or even 
under water. You can’t be too careful.” 

So Grandpa Whackum went on with Toodle 
and Noodle, giving them a lesson on the way. 
All of a sudden he stopped short. 

“There!” he cried, pointing to a pile of leaves. 
“There’s a trap. The hunter thought he hid it, 
but I saw it.” 

He led Toodle and Noodle close up, and there 
they saw the trap. The sharp steel jaws were 
open, all ready to spring shut in case any one 
stepped ever so lightly on the part called the trig- 
ger. You know how a toy gun shoots. Well, a 
trap goes off just like that. 

So Grandpa Whackum told the boy beavers 
all about traps, the different kinds, and how they 


Noodle and the Trap 


133 


were baited and set. And he found some more 
traps, and let the boys look at them — but not too 
close, you know. 

“Oh, I hope I never get caught in a trap,” said 
Noodle. 

“What can we do if we are ever caught in 
one?” asked Toodle. 

“Bang your tail on the ground for help, and, 
if any of us hear you, we’ll come,” said Grandpa 
Whackum. “But if you do get caught — well — I 
don’t like to talk about it. Let’s go get some 
lollypops.” 

So they went, and Toodle and Noodle were 
more glad than ever that they had had a lesson 
in traps, even on Saturday. 

“Now you may go off and play — lessons are 
over,” said Grandpa Whackum with a smile, and 
Toodle and Noodle ran off to meet some of their 
friends. 

“I wonder if I can ever find a trap?” thought 
Noodle, as he was playing ball with Sammie Lit- 
tletail, Bully, the frog, and others of his friends. 
“I guess I’ll go look, when this game is finished,” 
he said. 

So, when the ball game was over. Noodle 
started off to find a trap. He asked his brother 
Toodle to come with him, but Toodle said he 
wanted to play tag with Billie and Johnnie 


136 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


Bushy tail, the squirrel boys. So Noodle went 
off by himself. 

As he was walking through the woods, looking 
on all sides for a trap, the way Grandpa Whack- 
um had taught him to do, the little beaver boy 
saw the kind old bear who had helped Toodle 
pull the log into the water. 

“Hello, Toodle,” said the bear. 

“If you please,” said Noodle, I’m not Toodle; 
I’m his brother.” 

“Oh, excuse me,” said the bear, and he was 
just going back in the forest to sleep some more, 
when Noodle saw that the kind bear was about 
to step into a big bear trap that was right be- 
hind him. The bear hadn’t seen it. 

“Look out!” cried the beaver boy. “A trap! 
A trap!” 

“Mercy me!” exclaimed the bear, and he 
stepped to one side just in time. “Say, that cer- 
tainly is a trap,” he went on. “Some hunter is 
after me. But I’ll fool him.” So the bear 
sprung the trap shut with a piece of wood, and 
left it there to show the hunter that some hears 
were smart. “And I’m glad you told me of the 
trap,” said the bear to the heaver boy. “Other- 
wise, I might have been caught.” 

Then Noodle went on a little farther, looking 
for beaver traps, and all of a sudden he heard a 
snap, and something caught him by the paw, and 


Noodle and the Trap 


187 


there he was, held fast. He had found another 
trap, but before he had seen it he was caught 
in it! 

4 ‘Oh, dear!” he cried, and he pulled and tugged, 
trying to get loose, but he couldn’t. Oh, how 
badly he felt. After all his Grandpa’s lessons 
to be caught this way. Wasn’t it too bad? 

“Oh, what shall I do?” he cried. “Soon the 
hunter may come along and take off my fur. 
Oh, I know. I’ll whack my tail on the ground 
the way Grandpa told me to. Maybe some one 
will come to save me.” 

Noodle’s tail wasn’t fast in the trap, so he 
could bang it on the ground. And he had only 
hit two or three times before the kind bear came 
rushing up. 

“Hello! What’s this? In trouble, eh?” said 
the kind bear. “Well, well! I must help you, 
since you were so kind to me.” So the bear, with 
his strong paws, easily opened the beaver trap, 
which was small, and not like a big bear trap. 
Then Noodle was loose, though his paw hurt him 
very much. 

So he thanked the good bear, and hurried home 
to tell Grandpa Whackum, and all the other 
beavers how he had found a trap, and how the 
bear had helped him out of it. 

And now I know you must be tired and 
sleepy, and want to go to bed. So I’ll say good- 


138 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


by, and next, if the frying pan doesn’t fall on the 
gas stove and scare the milk bottle, so all the 
eream turns sour, I’ll tell you about Toodle sav- 
ing Bully, the frog. 


STORY XIX 


TOODLE SAVES BULLY 

Toodle Flat-tail, the little beaver boy, was 
coming home from school all alone. The reason 
of this was that his brother. Noodle, and all his 
other friends had gone on ahead, not waiting for 
Toodle. 

No, Toodle didn’t have to stay in — don’t 
think it! He hadn’t whispered, or chewed gum 
in school, or anything like that. Still he didn’t 
get out when the others did because, you see, he 
happened to lose a penny out of his pocket, and 
he stayed to find it — find the penny, not the 
pocket, you understand, for the pocket was still 
fast in his little spotted trousers. 

The penny which Toodle lost was one Grand- 
pa Whackum, the oldest beaver of them all had 
given him with which to buy a birch bark lolly- 
pop. Toodle had not had time to buy the candy 
on a stick before school, and so kept his penny in 
his pocket all that afternoon, while he said his 
lessons. 

And, every once in a while, he would put his 
paw in his pocket to see if his money were safe. 

And it was — all except the last time. 

139 


140 


Toodle and Noodle Flat- Tail 


Toodle was just feeling of his penny when 
Professor Rat, who kept school, called out: 

“Toodle Flat-tail, please stand up and spell 
me the word ‘fox!’ ” 

Well, if you will kindly believe me, Toodle was 
so excited when he heard that word “fox,” think- 
ing, for all I know, that maybe a fox was trying 
to get in a window, that he jumped up quickly, 
pulled his paw out of his pocket, and, alas! the 
penny came with it. Away rolled the money, 
over the schoolroom floor, rattle-te-bang ! and 
down a crack it went. 

“Oh, dear!” cried Toodle, and all the other 
animal children laughed. 

“Never mind,” said Professor Rat, kindly. 
“You did not mean to do it, Toodle. Now you 
may recite your lesson, and after school you may 
stay in and look for your penny.” 

So that is why the little beaver boy had to stay 
in to find his penny. His brother Noodle said 
he’d stay and help him hunt for it, but Toodle 
said: 

“No, you had better go along home and tell 
mamma that I will be a little late. Then she 
won’t worry.” 

You see it’s too bad to make mammas worry, 
and if ever we can do anything to stop that it’s 
a good thing. Toodle knew that. 

So, as I said, he stayed in after school to hunt 


Toodle Saves Bully 


141 


for his penny, when all the other pupils went 
home. And when Professor Rat had finished 
cleaning off the blackboard, he helped Toodle 
look for the lost money. 

And, all of a sudden, as they were looking for 
it, and when the kind old rat gentleman teacher 
was partly under a desk, Toodle cried: 

“Oh, I see it!” 

“Where?” asked Professor Rat, and he 
jumped up so quickly that his head bumped on 
the underside of the desk, and jiggled the ink 
bottle, and the ink ran all over his collar, and 
made it all striped black and white like a zebra in 
the circus. 

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” cried Toodle, when he 
saw what had happened. 

“Oh, never mind,” spoke Professor Rat, wip- 
ing the ink out of his left ear with the end of his 
tail. “Where did you see your penny, Toodle?” 

“It rolled down a crack,” said the little beaver 
boy. “I can see it, but I can’t get it.” 

“Then we will call J illy Longtail, the little 
mouse girl, to get it for you,” said Professor Rat. 
Jillie Longtail lived near the school, and she was 
at her house helping her mamma get supper. 
She soon came over, and, being very small, she 
could get into little cracks. She quickly slipped 
into this one and brought up Toodle’s lost penny. 


142 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


“Oh, thank you, so much !” said the little beaver 
boy. ‘Til give you some of my lollypop.” 

Off Toodle hurried to the candy store that 
was kept by an old gentleman duck who lived in 
a molasses barrel, and the little beaver boy 
bought the nicest birch bark flavored lollypop 
he could see. Then he went back to Jillie’s house 
to give her a bite. And by this time it was get- 
ting rather late, so Toodle thought he had better 
hurry home. 

As he was walking along he heard a rustling 
in the bushes and, before he could run away, out 
jumped a bad old fox, who cried: 

“Give me that lollypop!” And he was going 
to take it away from poor Toodle, when, all of a 
sudden, a big, deep, bass voice cried: 

“Here! You let my fried Toodle alone! 
Don’t you dare take his candy, or I’ll bite you!” 

And that fox was so frightened that he ran 
away, taking his tail with him, and he never 
touched Toodle or the lollypop either. The little 
beaver boy wondered who it was that had saved 
him, when, out from behind a stump came Bully, 
the frog boy, laughing as hard as he could. 

“Did you hear me?” asked Bully. “Did you 
hear me scare him?” 

“I surely did,” said Toodle. “I’m much 
obliged to you? How did you do it? 

“Why, I have a bad cold,” said Bully, “and 


Toodle Saves Bully 


143 


my voice is very deep and hoarse, just like an au- 
tomobile horn. 1 guess when that bad fox heard 
it he thought maybe I was a giant, and so he ran 
away.” 

“I’m glad he did,” said Toodle, “for he might 
have bitten me. Here, Bully, have a bit of my 
lollypop. It will be good for your sore throat.” 

So Toodle broke off, with a stone, a bit of his 
nice lollypop, and gave Bully some. And Bully 
liked it very much, He said it made him feel 
better. 

Well, the frog boy and the beaver boy walked 
on through the woods together, talking of many 
things, such as how to keep out of traps, and how 
to get away from hunters and dogs, and all like 
that. Pretty soon, they came to the beaver pond, 
where Toodle’s house was built. 

“Come on,” cried Toodle. Let’s see who can 
swim across this pond, Bully.” 

Into the water sprang the frog and the beaver 
boy, and they were swimming away, first one and 
then the other being ahead, when all of a sudden. 
Bully saw something red in the water. 

“Oh, here is a cinnamon lollypop,” cried Bully. 
“Wait until I get it.” 

“Maybe it’s a trap,” said Toodle, careful like. 

“No, I’m sure it’s a lollypop,” spoke Bully, 
who, like all frogs, liked very much anything that 
was red. Up Bully swam to it, and as quick as 


144 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


a wink, he bit it, intending to carry it away with 
him. But a second later he cried: 

“Oh, dear! I’m caught. You’re right, Toodle! 
It was a trap !” 

And, what do you think? That red thing was 
a piece of red flannel, and it was fast to a hook 
that a boy had thus baited, and put into the 
water, hoping to catch a frog. And he had 
caught Bully. Oh, dear! 

Poor Bully squirmed and twisted, and tried 
to get loose from the hook, but he could not. It 
had fastened itself in his mouth when he bit on 
the red flannel that he thought was a cinnamon 
lollypop. 

“Oh, what shall I do?” cried Bully. 

“Hold on! I’ll save you!” shouted Toodle, 
swimming as fast as he could toward Bully. The 
boy, up on the bank of the pond, where he had 
his pole and hook and line, was trying to pull 
Bully out of the water. But Toodle took a tight 
hold of the frog in his paws and then with his big 
tail, Toodle splashed a whole lot of water in that 
boy’s face, as he sat near the edge of the beaver 
pond. 

“Oh, dear!” cried the boy, surprised like. “It’s 
raining! I guess I’d better go home before I get 
wet !” You see, he never knew it was Toodle who 
had splashed him, for he could not see the little 
heaver chap. 


Toodle Saves Bully 


145 


So the boy ran home to his mamma, leaving 
his pole there. Of course poor Bully was still 
fast to the hook, but when the boy was gone he 
and Toodle swam out on the bank, and then 
Toodle hurried off and got Dr. Possum, who 
soon took the hook out of Bully’s mouth. 

Of course it hurt some, just as when you have 
a tooth pulled, but it’s better to have a hook or an 
aching tooth, out of your mouth than in. And 
Bully was very much obliged to Toodle for sav- 
ing him, and he said he’d never bite on anything 
red again, unless he was sure what it was. 

Then Toodle gave Bully some more lollypop, 
and the two friends got home just in time for 
their suppers and that’s all there is to this story. 

But in the next one, if the potato masher 
doesn’t fall on the doll’s toes so she can’t go 
roller skating with the sewing machine, I’ll tell 
you about Crackie Flat-tail going to school. 


STORY XX 


CEACKIE GOES TO SCHOOL 

“Come on, boys, wake up!” called Grandpa 
Whackum, the old beaver gentleman, to Toodle 
and Noodle, the two beaver boys, at their home in 
the pond one morning. “Be lively, now! I guess 
you forget what morning this is.” 

“Ha! Is it Christmas?” asked Noodle, as he 
rubbed his sleepy eyes with his paw. 

“Or Fourth of July?” asked Toodle, flopping 
his big, broad tail up and down to see if any mos- 
quitoes had bitten him in the night. But none 
had, I’m glad to say. 

“No, it isn’t Fourth of July or Christmas,” 
answered Grandpa Whackum, looking out on 
the beaver dam that held the waters of the pond 
from running away. The old gentleman beaver 
wanted to see if, in the dam, there were any holes 
that needed mending. 

“Today is when your little sister, Crackie, 
starts for school,” went on Grandpa Whackum. 
He was called that, you know, because he used 
to whack his tail on the ground to tell when 
there was danger coming, so the other beavers 

could go and hide away. 

146 


Crackie Goes to School 


147 


And the little beaver girl was called Crackie 
because she was always dropping dishes and 
things and cracking them. She didn’t mean to, 
of course, and lately she didn’t drop nearly so 
many as she used to at first. 

“My goodness!” cried Toodle, hopping out of 
bed. “And so Crackie is to go to school today?” 

“Yes; and you and Noodle are to take her,” 
said Grandpa Whackum. “So hurry down to 
breakfast. You don’t want to be late for school 
the first day Crackie goes, you know.” 

“No, indeed,” said Noodle. “Come on, Too- 
dle, we’ll have a race to see who gets dressed 
first.” 

So the beaver boys raced at putting on their 
rubber clothes, which they could wear in the water 
without getting wet, for beavers are very fond 
of swimming, you know, and live in the water 
half the time. 

“May I wear my red dress and brown hair rib- 
bons?” asked Crackie of her mamma at the break- 
fast table. 

“I guess so,” said Mrs. Flat-tail, who felt a 
little sorry because her only daughter was grow- 
ing up big enough to go to school. 

Well, pretty soon, in a little while, not so very 
long, Toodle and Noodle and Crackie were all 
ready for school. Off they started, after kissing 
their mamma and Grandpa Whackum good-by. 


148 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


Into the water they jumped, and away they 
swam. 

The school was in an old boat, as I have told 
you, and often this boat would float away, mak- 
ing it so hard for the animal children to find it 
that they were sometimes late. But this time 
Professor Rat, the school teacher, had tied the 
boat fast to an old stump, so it was easily found, 
and no one was late. 

Toodle and Noodle took their little sister in- 
side the school. 

“Ah, ha!” said Professor Rat, kindly. “A 
new little pupil! Well, Crackie, we are glad to 
see you. We hope you will like it here. I think 
first I will put you in the kindergarten class. 
Later on, when you learn more, you may sit with 
Toodle and Noodle and Sammie and Susie Lit- 
tletail and the others.” 

So Crackie went in the kindergarten class and 
had a little chair all to herself. Her teacher was 
a nice lady bug, who could play a tin piano solo 
so tickily-ickly-like that you would always want 
to dance. And sometimes she let her pupils 
march around the room while she played. 

Well, after a bit, Crackie looked around, and 
over on one side of the room she saw her brothers, 
Toodle and Noodle. 

“Say, Toodle!” cried Crackie, right out loud 
in school, “I’m hungry. Can’t I have some of 


Crackie Goes to School 


149 


that ginger-bread-cake mamma gave you to put 
in your pocket?” 

“Oh, hush, Crackie, dear!” cried Toodle, but 
all the other animal children laughed to hear 
Crackie call out loud that wav in school. 

“But I am hungry!” said Crackie, and tears 
came into her eves. You see she had never been 
to school before, and she did not quite know how 
to act. “I’m very hungry!” the little beaver girl 
went on. “Can’t you give me something to eat, 
Noodle, dear?” 

Noodle got red behind his ears to think thal 
his sister acted so in school. Profesor Rat looked 
up over his glases. 

“You must not talk in school, Crackie, dear,” 
he said gently. “The others can’t study if you 
talk.” 

“But I am hungry,” went on Crackie. “May- 
be if 1 had something to eat I wouldn’t talk. 
You could try it, Mr. Rat.” 

Everybody laughed at that — it sounded so 
funny — and Mr. Rat tried not to smile as he 
said: 

“No, Crackie, we’re not allowed to eat in 
school. You must please be quiet.” 

“School is a funny place” said Crackie, still 
speaking out loud. “You can’t talk and you 
can’t eat. What can you do?” 

“Really, my dear,” said Professor Rat, “you 


150 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


must keep quiet. I’m afraid you’re not old 
enough to come to school.” 

So Crackie kept quiet for a little while and 
played with her kindergarten blocks and cut 
some funny things out of paper. But at last 
she could not stand it any longer. She cried out : 

“Isn’t it time to eat yet, Toodle?” 

Well, it was so quiet just then, with no one 
saying anything, or reciting, that Crackie’s voice 
sounded very loudly, and every one laughed. 

“Crackie,” said Professor Rat, and he had to 
speak sharply, “you really must keep quiet, or 
else go home,” 

“Then please let me go home,” said Crackie. 
“I don’t have to keep so quiet there and I can get 
something to eat. Toodle, Noodle, please take 
me home,” and she got up out of her seat, and 
walked over to her brothers. 

‘'Oh, Crackie!” cried the lady bug teacher, 
sadly like. 

“You mustn’t do that,” said Professor Rat, 
and really he didn’t know what to do himself. 
He had never had any one like Crackie in school 
before. And, really, she didn’t mean to be bad. 
She just didn’t know any better. It was her 
first day, you see. 

“I want to talk, I’m hungry, I want to go 
home,” said Crackie, as if that was all there was 


Crackie Goes to School 


151 


to it. She didn’t see why she couldn’t do just as 
she had been used to doing at home. 

“Come on, Toodle and Noodle,” she called. 
“School is no fun. I’m going home !” 

Well, of course that upset everything. All 
the boy and girl animals laughed, and they 
couldn’t study. The lady bug teacher, and Pro- 
fessor Rat himself, did not know what to do with 
Crackie. Mr. Rat was just thinking that per- 
haps he had better send one of her brothers home 
with Crackie when the little beaver girl, who was 
standing next to the window, cried out: 

“Oh, the alligator! The bad, old skillery alli- 
gator! He is coming right in at the side door!” 

And that was so. Crackie had gotten up just 
in time to see the alligator, and, only for her, 
maybe the bad creature would have gotten into 
the school before any one could stop him. 

“Ha!” cried Professor Rat. “The skillery- 
scalery alligator, eh? I’ll fix him! I’m glad you 
told me, Crackie.” 

Then the rat gentleman took two blackboard 
erasers in his paws. He clapped them together 
— the erasers, I mean — making a noise like a 
gun, and a lot of chalk dust that was on the eras- 
ers flew out, making it look just like smoke from 
a cannon, and when the ’gator saw this, and when 
he heard the bang-bang noise, he cried out : 

“Wow! I guess I made a mistake. This must 


152 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


be where hunters or soldiers live. This is no 
place for me!” And away he went, taking his 
double- jointed tail with him. 

“Crackie,” said Professor Pat, “you saved us 
all from the alligator by seeing him in time for 
me to scare him away. I guess, after all, it’s a 
good thing you came to school, even if you did 
talk.” 

“And may I have something to eat?” asked 
the little beaver girl. “If I may I don’t want to 
go home.” 

“Give her some of that ginger-bread cake,” 
said Mr. Rat to Toodle. “I guess it won’t hurt 
to let her eat in school, and she is so little, and 
she was so brave.” 

So Crackie ate some cake, and she felt better, 
and all the other animal children wished thev 
had some. Then they had more lessons, and soon 
school was out, and, after all, Crackie was glad 
she came. 

So, on the next page, if the peanut man 
doesn’t take away our refrigerator to roast his 
chestnuts on at the moving picture show. I’ll tell 
you about Toodle’s roller skates. 


STORY XXI 


TOODLE AND HIS ROLLER SKATES 

“Mamma/’ said Toodle Flat-tail, the little 
beaver boy one afternoon as he came in from 
school, and looked around in the ice box to see if 
there was any cake left over from dinner, “would 
you do me a favor, mamma?” 

“Well, Toodle,” said Mrs. Flat-tail, wiping 
some flour off the end of her nose with her paw, 
for she was making a raisin pudding for supper, 
“well, Toodle, it depends on what the favor is.” 

“Oh, ma,” went on Toodle, making his tail go 
up and down like a palm leaf fan on Christmas 
eve, “I do want a pair of roller skates awful 
bad.” 

“Roller skates!” cried Mrs. Flat-tail, raising 
both her paws in the air, she was so surprised like. 
“Why, you know they cost a lot of money, Too- 
dle, and your father hasn’t any too much. You 
know winter is coming on, and there will be lots 
of things to buy. Besides, there will soon be 
snow and ice all over the ground, and ice skates 
would be better than rollers, I should think. 
Grandpa Whackum can show you how to make 

ice skates out of a flat bone.” 

153 


154 


Toodle and Noodle Flat- Tail 


“I’d rather have roller skates, ma,” said Too- 
dle. “It won’t be winter for quite a while yet, 
and I could have lots of fun. I saw one of the 
Bushytail squirrel boys with a pair coming from 
school, and he went along like anything — so 
fast! 

“Say, ma, if I had a pair of roller skates I 
could go to the store for you twice as quick 
when you wanted anything. Mayn’t I have a 
pair — please?” 

“Now, Toodle, said Mrs. Flat-tail. Don’t 
tease, that’s a good boy. You know if you had 
a pair Noodle would want some also, and so 
would Crackie. And three pairs of roller skates 
— my gracious goodness me sakes alive! Why 
your papa would be the poorest beaver in all 
this pond if he had to buy three pairs of roller 
skates with winter coming on. I’m afraid you 
can’t get them.” 

“Oh dear!” said Toodle, with a sigh. “Oh 
dear!” 

He felt so badly that he didn’t want to eat 
much of the nice green willow bark sandwiches 
they had for supper, and Grandpa Whackum 
said: 

“What’s the matter with that boy? Is he 
sick?” 

“He wants roller skates,” said Mrs. Flat-tail. 


Toodle and His Roller Skates 


155 


“If he has a pair I want some, too,” said 
Noodle. 


“That’s how I thought it would be,” said Mrs. 
Flat-tail, with a look at her husband. 

“Well, I’m afraid no one can have roller 
skates this year,” said the beaver gentleman. 
“This is going to be a hard winter. There aren’t 
many trees left around here for food any more, 
and we’ll have to bring them from a long way 
off. And the pond will soon be frozen over, too. 
Ice skates would be much better for you, Toodle, 
and you can make them yourself.” 

“I’ll show you how,” spoke Grandpa 
Whackum. 


“I’d — I’d rather have roller skates,” said the 
little beaver boy. 

“Well, you had better study your school home 
work lesson now,” said his papa, as he sat down 
to read the evening paper. 

But Toodle did not feel much like studying. 
You know how it is yourself, when you want a 
rubber doll, or maybe a water pistol, or a bicycle, 
or something that your papa or mamma can’t 
let vou have, for one reason or another. You 
keep thinking of that, and nothing else, and it 
seems as if you re 

That’s the wav it was with Toodle. He 

%> 

thought of nothing much but roller skates. The 


ally must have it. 


156 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


next day in school when Professor Rat asked 
him how to spell horse, Toodle said: 

“R-o-l-l-e-r — roller, s-k-a-t-e — skate — roller 
skates,” and all the animal children laughed at 
him. 

“Next,” said the teacher, and poor Toodle 
had to go down to the foot of the class. Oh, 
how badly he felt. 

But, coming home from school that after- 
noon, something happened to Toodle and, after 
that he didn’t want roller skates at all any more. 
I’ll tell you about it. 

Toodle was walking along by himself. His 
brother Noodle and the other boys had asked 
him to come with them to play football, but 
Toodle was thinking so much about his roller 
skates that he didn’t want to do anything else. 
So he would not go. 

So he was walking along through the woods, 
feeling rather sad and miserable, and wishing 
his papa was a rich beaver, when, all of a sud- 
den, Toodle saw a little bear on the path in 
front of him. The bear was such a small chap, 
not much bigger than Toodle himself, that the 

beaver bov wasn’t a bit afraid. 

%/ 

Of course he looked around to see if the big 
papa or mamma bear was in sight, but they were 
not, and so when the baby bear said “Hello!” 


Toodle and His Roller Skates 


157 


Toodle answered back, “Hello!” as bravely as 
anything. 

“What are you doing out here?” asked Toodle 
of the baby bear. 

“Oh just walking along,” said the baby bear. 
“What are you doing here? You don’t look 
very happy, my little beaver boy. Are you 
looking for anything?” 

“Yes, I’m looking for a pair of roller skates,” 
said Toodle. “Of course, I don’t believe I’ll 
find ’em out here, but I’m looking just the 
same.” 

Then a sharp, cunning look came over the 
face of that baby bear, and he said: 

“Well, now, if this isn’t the best luck! Say, 
beaver boy, come with me, and maybe my 
father will give you his roller skates. He’s go- 
ing to take a long winter sleep soon, and he 
won’t need them. I’ll ask him to let you take 
his.” 

“Will you really?” cried Toodle in delight. 
“That’s fine! I’ll come right along with you.” 

Now Toodle had been told never to believe 
what a bear — even a baby bear — said, or to go 
with one of them. But he was thinking so 
much about roller skates that he couldn’t think 
of anything else. And so he forgot to be care- 
ful. 

“Just come along to the den where I live,” 


158 


Toodle and Noodle Flat- Tail 


said the baby bear, “and maybe I’ll get you 
some roller skates.” 

Toodle felt very happy to hear this, and 
walked along through the woods at the side of 
the brown baby bear. Pretty soon they came 
to the bear’s den. At first Toodle was a little 
afraid when he saw the papa and mamma bear, 
but the baby bear waved his paws at them, and 
cried out: 

“I’ve brought a nice fat beaver boy home with 
me. He wants some roller skates. I told him 
maybe he could have your old ones, papa, for 
you’re going to take a long sleep.” 

“That’s right,” said Mr. Bear. “That’s 
right.” 

Toodle thought it was funny for the baby 
bear to speak about how he had brought a fat 
beaver boy home. 

“I wonder why he said I was fat,” thought 
Toodle. Oh, if he had only known how bears 
like fat beavers just before they take a long 
winter sleep! Oh my, but just wait and see 
what happens. 

“I’ll go in and get the skates,” said Mr. Bear. 
Then he said to his wife: “You stay out here 
with this nice fat beaver boy. Oh, isn’t he fat!” 

“I wonder why they’re so glad I’m fat?” 
thought Toodle. 

Well he sat down on his tail outside the bear’s 


Toodle and His Roller Skates 


159 


stone cave and waited. Mr. Bear and the little 
baby bear went inside. 

Pretty soon, through an open window in the 
cave, Toodle heard voices speaking. They were 
the voices of the papa bear and the baby bear 
talking together. 

“Didn’t I do well to bring home a nice, fat 
beaver boy for our supper?” asked the baby 
bear. “I saw him in the woods, and when he 
said roller skates I could see that he wanted 
them very much. I knew you had an old pair, 
so I told him to come along.” 

“Yes,” said Mr. Bear. “I’ll make believe to 
give the skates to him, and then we’ll ask him 
in the den to try them on, and then we can 
grab him, and ” 

“Yum! Yum!” exclaimed the little bear, 
smacking his lips, and Toodle knew by that how 
hungry the little bear was. 

“Ah, ha!” exclaimed the beaver boy. “So 
this is a trick, eh? The roller skates are only 
to fool me! Those bears want to get me in 
their den and then they’ll eat me. I’m not 
going to stay here!” And with that he ran off 
toward a pond of water, where he knew he 
would be safe, for a bear can never catch a 
beaver in water. 

“Here! Where are you going?” cried Mrs. 


160 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


Bear. 4 4 Come back for your roller skates, beaver 
boy!” 

4 T — I guess I don’t want any,” said Toodle, 
slyly-like, and with that he jumped into the 
water and swam safely home, though the big 
papa bear tried to catch him. But he didn’t, 
I’m glad to say. So you see it was all a trick 
about the roller skates, and the baby bear tried 
to fool Toodle with them. 

And when Toodle reached home he was all 
over the notion of wanting roller skates, which 
had nearly gotten him into a lot of trouble. 

44 Never believe what bears say — even a 
baby bear — unless they are good bears,” said 
Grandpa Whackum when he heard what had 
happened, and Papa Flat-tail said the same 
thing. And soon I’ll show you how to make 
ice skates,” said Grandpa Whackum. 

So that is the story of Toodle, and how he 
didn’t get his roller skates after all, and it’s a 
good thing he didn’t, I guess. And in the next 
story, if the spelling book doesn’t jump over 
the geography and spill the ink bottle out of 
the parlor window, I’ll tell you about Noodle' 
and the pop corn. 


STORY XXII 


NOODLE AND THE POPCORN 

One day, when Noodle and Toodle and little 
Crackie Flat-tail, the beaver children were on 
their way to school, which, as I have told you, 
was in an old boat, kept by Professor Rat, the 
three little animal children saw Grandfather 
Goosey Gander, the old duck gentleman, go- 
ing along with a bag over his shoulder. 

“Ha! Where do you s’pose he’s going with 
that bag?” asked Toodle of Noodle, as the 
beaver boys stopped on the path to watch. 

“I don’t know,” said Noodle to Toodle. 
“Maybe he is pretending to be Santa Claus.” 

“It is too earlv — Christmas is too far off — 
for anyone to be practicing Santa Claus now,” 
said Toodle. “And anyhow, Grandpa Goosey 
hasn’t a red coat on, all trimmed with white, 
and he hasn’t any white whiskers, so he can’t 
be Santa Claus.” 

“That’s so,” said Noodle. “Let’s ask him 
what he’s got in that bag. He’ll tell us, and 
if it’s something good to eat maybe he’ll give 
us some.” 

“You boys had better come on to school,” 

161 


162 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


said Crackie, “or else you may be late/’ 

“Oh, this won’t take a minute,” said Noodle. 
“I’ll run after Grandpa Goosey and ask him. 
You and Toodle can go on, Crackie, and tell 
Professor Rat that I’m coming.” 

So Toodle and Crackie, the two little beaver 
children, went on to school, holding their broad, 
flat tails up out of the mud. Their tails were 
so large that when they grew tired the beaver 
children could sit on them, just as you children 
sit on a stool. 

Noodle ran after the old duck gentleman, 
who had kept wobbling along with the bag over 
his shoulder, and, when the little beaver boy got 
near enough, he saw that the bag was very heavy 
indeed, and that Grandpa Goosey had hard 
work to carry it. 

“Good morning. Grandfather Goosey Gan- 
der,” said Noodle politely. “Don’t you want 
me to help you carry that bag?” You see. Noo- 
dle wanted to know what was in it, but he knew 
it wasn’t just nice to ask at once. So he 
offered first to help the duck gentleman. 

“Ha! Hum!” exclaimed Grandfather Goosey, 
with a sneeze that made his hat fall off. Noodle 
kindly picked it up for him. 

“Excuse me,” went on Grandfather Goosey, 
speaking through his yellow bill. “You see I 
have a bad cold in my head. I can’t talk very 


Noodle and the Popcorn 


163 


well, and I can’t hear very well. Jimmie Wib- 
blewobble, my little grandson, dropped part of 
bis ice cream cone down my back the other 
night, at the duck party, and that gave me a 
cold. Oh dear!” and poor Grandfather Goosey 
Gander sneezed again. This time his spectacles 
flew off, and bounced into the pond of water. 

But, in a second, Noodle, who could swim bet- 
ter than a fish, jumped in and got them out. 

“Thank you very kindly,” said Grandfather 
Goosey Gander, as he put his glasses on his 
ears — I beg your pardon — I mean his nose. 

“What was it you asked me, .Noodle? — just 
before I sneezed — excuse me — here I go again 
— aker-choo-choo-choo!” and surely enough, the 
duck gentleman sneezed like a choo-choo engine. 
This time a penny jumped out of his pocket, he 
sneezed so hard, and when Noodle picked up 
the money, Grandfather Goosey said the little 
beaver boy could keep it for himself. 

“I asked if I couldn’t help you carry your 
bag, Grandfather Goosey,” said Noodle, when 
the sneezing had ended. “It seems too heavy 
for you. Maybe there is gold in it,” he added, 
for, through a hole in the bag, the little beaver 
boy saw something yellow, just like gold. 

“Gold! Ha! ha! No, I wish it were,” said 
Grandfather Goosey Gander. “Then I would 


164 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


be as rich as Uncle Wiggly Longears, the rab- 
bit gentleman. 

“No, Noodle, this isn’t gold. It is yellow 
corn, that we ducks will eat this winter, just 
as you beavers will eat the bark of trees.” 

“Do you want me to help you carry it?” asked 
Noodle. Somehow or other he was just a little 
sorry that the bag didn’t have in it some Santa 
Claus Christmas presents. But then there was 
time enough for them later, he thought. 

“Oh, bless your tail, no!” said Grandpa 
Goosey Gander, with a laughing quack. “I 
shall manage it very well. But, since you were 
so kind as to offer to help, Noodle, I will give 
you an ear of corn. It isn’t the 
we ducks eat, but a white kind. 

“And if you shell off the kernels and put 
them in a popper or a pan over the fire the 
corn will pop, and you can put butter on it, 
and salt; or you can put sugar on it, just like 
down on the board walk at Asburv Grove. 
Here is your ear of pop corn.” 

“Oh, thank you very much,” said the little 
beaver boy, as Grandpa Goosey gave him the 
extra white ear of pop corn. “I’ll pop it to- 
night and give Toodle and Crackie some,” said 
Noodle. 

“Very good,” spoke Grandpa Goosey, and 
then, slinging his bag over his shoulder he 


yellow kind that 












Noodle and the Popcorn 


165 


started for home, while Noodle went on to 
school. He left the ear of pop corn outside in 
a hollow stump, where no one could find it, for 
he did not want to take it in school with him. 

“Well, what did Grandpa Goosey have in the 
bag?” asked Toodle of Noodle at recess that 
day. 

“Corn,” answered Noodle, “and he gave me 
some of my own to pop. We’ll have a good 
time home tonight.” 

Well, when evening came in the Flat-tail 
house, and when the lessons were all done, Noo- 
dle brought out his ear of corn, and he and 
Toodle and Crackie shelled off the kernels. 
There was a fire on the open fire place, and 
when the logs had burned down to red, glowing 
coals, Noodle put the popper over them and 
shook it back and forth, just as Grandpa Goosey 
had told him to do, so the corn would not burn. 

“Now, children,” said Mrs. Flat-tail to them, 
“your papa and I are going over to call on 
Uncle Wiggily Longears for a few minutes. 
Grandpa Whackum is out to a moving picture 
show, and so you will be all alone. But I know 
you will be all right.” 

“Yes, mamma,” said Toodle and Crackie. 

Then Noodle shook the popper some more, 
while his papa and mamma went out. The corn 
was rather slow in popping, and the beaver 


166 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tai 1 


children were just wondering whether Grandpa 
Goosey had not made a mistake, and given 
Noodle the wrong kind, when, all of a sudden, 
the front door quietly opened, and in came 
creeping softly — oh! so softly! — a bad old fox! 

He wanted to get one of the beaver children, 
but neither Noodle nor Toodle nor Crackie 
heard the fox, as they were so busy watching 
for the corn to pop. 

Nearer and nearer crept the fox, and the bad 
creature suddenly stuck out his paws and 
grabbed Crackie. 

“Now, I have you!” cried the fox, and at 
that Noodle, who was shaking the popper, 
turned around to see what had happened. And 
when he saw that the fox had hold of his sister 
Crackie, Noodle was so surprised that he forgot 
to shake the popper. That made the corn get 
very hot, and it quickly began to pop all at once. 

All of a sudden poppity-pop-pop ! it went, 
just like a lot of firecrackers, and the popper 
was so full that the cover flew off, and the white 
pop corn was scattered all over the room. 

It showered on the fox just like snow, and 
the bad creature was so frightened at hearing 
the popping noise, and at seeing the snow white 
kernels burst out, that he cried: 

“Oh, wow! Double wow and some pepper- 


Noodle and the Popcorn 


167 


hash. Oh, I am shot! I am caught in a snow 
storm! Excuse me!” 

And with that he let go of Crackie, and out 
of the door he rushed, home to his den where 
he belonged. And so he didn’t get Crackie 
after all, nor Toodle nor Noodle. And the 
beaver children weren’t frightened any more, 
and they popped corn, and made some with but- 
ter on, and some with sugar, and their papa and 
mamma and Grandpa Whackum said it was 
just fine. 

So that’s the story of Noodle and his pop 
corn, that Grandpa Goosey Gander gave him, 
and I hope you liked it. And next, if the puppy 
dog doesn’t pull off the baby’s stockings to play 
tag with in the gold-fish tank, I’ll tell you about 
Toodle and Noodle in trouble. 


STORY XXIII 


TOODLE AND NOODLE IN TROUBLE 

Of course, they didn’t mean to do it* Chil- 
dren, whether they are animals, like little beaver 
boys, or real boys and girls like yourselves, 
never do mean to get into trouble, I suppose, 
but, sometimes they do, just the same. 

And now, if you’d like to hear it, and won’t 
wiggle too much, I’ll tell you how Toodle and 
Xoodle, the two little beaver boys, made a lot 
of trouble, just because they didn’t stop to 
think. 

It was one cool day, when there was no school, 
because Professor Rat had to go to the dentist’s 
to have his spectacles fixed, that this happened. 

Toodle and Noodle, with their sister Crackie, 
had started for school, and on the way, as they 
often did, they met Billie and Johnnie Bushy- 
tail, the squirrels, and Sammie and Susie Little- 
tail, the rabbit children, and Buddy and Bright- 
eyes, the guinea pigs, and many more of their 
friends. 

And when they reached the school, which was 
in an old boat that floated around the pond, there 

was a sign on the door reading: 

168 


Toodle and Noodle in Trouble 169 


“No School Today. Come Tomorrow.” 

“Oh, joy!” cried Toodle. 

“Oh, happiness!” said Noodle. 

“Now we can have some fun,” spoke Bully 
the frog. “Come on, boys, what shall we do?” 

“Come over by our beaver pond and maybe 
we can have some fun there,” suggested Toodle. 

“Yes, you can coast down our mud-slide into 
the water,” added Noodle. 

“Oh, I couldn’t do that — rabbits are not sup- 
posed to do that,” said Sammie Littletail. 

“Well, come on, anyhow,” urged Noodle. 
“We’ll find some way to have fun.” 

So many of the animal boys went with Too- 
dle and Noodle over to the beaver pond, where 
there was a dam, or a long, low wall of mud, 
stones, sticks and grass to keep the water from 
running away. It was just such a dam as you 
children build in the gutter on a rainy day, only 
the beaver dam was larger. 

Most of the little girl animals — such as Susie 
Littletail, Dottie Trot, the pony girl; Kittie 
Kat, the little pussy girl — and, of course. Lulu 
and Alice Wibblewobble, the duck girls, went 
along with Crackie Flat-tail to the woods, to 
play with their dolls. 

When Toodle and Noodle, and their boy 
friends, came running around the beaver pond — 


170 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


some of them, like Bully No-tail, the frog, swim- 
ming in it — the beaver lady said: 

“My goodness, my sakes alive and some 
cherry potpie! What does this mean, Toodle — 
Noodle? Why are you home from school at 

this hour? It isn’t out, is it?” 

* 

“There isn’t any school, ma,” said Toodle, 
putting away his books. “Professor Rat has 
the toothache in his spectacles. Oh, I’m so 
glad!” 

“What!” cried Mrs. Flat-tail, “glad that any 
one is in pain?” 

“Oh, no, ma,” said Noodle, quickly. “Toodle 
meant that he was glad there was no school.” 

“That’s it,” said Toodle. “Come on, boys, 
let’s have some fun. We’ll go play around the 
dam, and I’ll show you how we coast down the 
mud slide.” 

“Be very careful,” said Mrs. Flat-tail. 
“There is a lot of water in the pond, on account 
of the big rain and the dam is not very strong. 
Don’t do anything to break it, for that would 
make a lot of trouble. All the water would run 
out.” 

“We won’t, ma,” said Noodle, and really lie 
meant it at the time he said it, of course. 

Well, the boys who had come home with Too- 
dle and Noodle began playing. They had lots 
of fun, and when the beaver boys slid down the 


Toodle and Noodle in Trouble 171 


slippery mud-slide by sitting on their big tails, 
why, Sammie Littletail said it was as good as a 
circus, and wished he had a big tail such as all 
beavers have. 

But of course when Toodle and Noodle slid 
down the mud-slide that wasn’t much fun for 
any one else, because the slide ran right into the 
water, into which Toodle and Noodle would go 
“ker-splash” every time they got to the bottom. 

“I’ll tell vou what we can do,” said Noodle, 
after a bit. “We can all go up to the top of the 
mud-slide, and roll stones down it. The one who 
sends his stone the longest distance wins the 
game.” 

“That will be fun,” cried Toodle. “Let’s all 
get stones and roll them down.” 

Now this is what Toodle and Noodle should 
not have done, for the mud-slide was close to the 
big dam that held in the waters of the beaver 
pond. And when the stones rolled down the 
slide they might break a hole in the dam. But 
Toodle and Noodle didn’t think. 

Soon all the boys were rolling stones, and 
many of the rocks hit the dam, bouncing off, 
turning somersaults over it, and some of them 
landing on it. 

“Now for a big stone,” cried Noodle,” as he 
climbed up the slide, with a large rock on his tail, 
which was like a sled, you see. 


172 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


“Oh, I have a bigger one!” cried Toodle, and 
up he came with one, too. 

If Grandpa Whackum, the oldest beaver of 
them all, had been there he never would have let 
the boys play such a game, and, really, Toodle 
and Noodle should have known better. But they 
didn’t think. 

All of a sudden Toodle and Noodle rolled 
their big stones down the slide, which was made 
slippery with water from the pond. Toodle’s 
stone struck the dam near the middle and Noo- 
dle’s over a little to one side. 

And then something happened. The stones 
broke large holes in the dam, and through these 
holes the water began rushing out. The beaver 
pond began to get lower and lower. 

“Oh, dear!” cried Noodle. “Look what we 
did!” 

“Yes, I guess we’d better be getting home, 
boys,” said Samuel Littletail. “The beavers will 
think we did that, Billie Bushy tail.” 

“You’re right!” cried the squirrel boy. Then 
he and all the others were going to leave Toodle 
and Noodle, when Bully, the frog, cried out: 

“Oh, say! That isn’t fair! When we are 
playing ball, and we break a window, we all help 
pay for it. Now that the dam is broken, though 


Toodle and Noodle in Trouble 


173 


we didn’t do it, we must help Toodle and Noodle 
fix it. Come on, boys.” 

The little beavers, who had felt sad when 
they saw all their friends going to leave them, 
were happy now. By this time the water was 
fast rushing out of the pond, through the holes 
the stones had made in the dam. And from their 
houses came rushing the grown-up beavers, won- 
dering what had happened. 

When they saw the trouble Toodle and Noo- 
dle had made they cried out: 

“Oh, dear!” 

For you know if the dam breaks and all the 
water in the pond runs out the beavers have to 
make another, or else they could not live in their 
houses. For their front doors have to be under 
water, you see, to keep out bad animals. 

Just then up came Grandpa Whackum. He 
saw right away that something must be done. 

“Quick, boys,” he called to Toodle and 
Noodle and their boy friends. “Bring me mud 
and sticks and leaves and grass and stones and 
pieces of wood. We’ll mend the dam!” 

Those animal boys who were good swimmers 
jumped into the pond and brought to Grandpa 
Whackum the things the other animals gathered 
from the woods. Soon the old beaver gentleman 
had many willing helpers, and with his paws, 


17 4 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


which were like a monkey’s hands, and his big 
tail he stopped up the holes in the dam. Toodle 
and Noodle helped also. 

But, oh ! what a lot of trouble they had made, 
though they did not mean to. Soon the dam was 
all fixed and the water was stopped from run- 
nining out of the pond. Then Grandpa 
Whackum gave all the animal boys a penny for 
ice cream sandwiches and everybody was happy. 
Toodle and Noodle said they would never roll 
bid stones down the mud slide again. 

‘‘Well, I hope there is school tomorrow,” said 
Grandpa Whackum, with a sigh, as he sat down 
on his tail to rest. 

So that’s how Toodle and Noodle made trou- 
ble, though not meaning to, and on the next page, 
if the jam doesn’t fall on the toy balloon and 
make it so sticky that it can’t go out in the baby 
carriage with the rubber doll. I’ll tell you about 
Toodle and the chestnuts. 


STORY XXIV 


TOODLE AND THE CHESTNUTS 

“Oh, but I’m glad there’s no school today!” 
cried Billie Bushytail, the squirrel boy, as he 
made a noise like a popcorn ball and ran up one 
side of a tree and down the other. 

“So am I!” cried his brother Johnnie, who 
was trying to see how long he could stand on his 
head without sneezing. * 

“Why are you so glad?” asked Toodle Flat- 
tail, the little beaver boy. “It’s Saturday and 
you know there’s never any school that day.” 

“I know there isn’t,” spoke Johnnie, “but 
then, you see, on account of there being none yes- 
terday, when Professor Rat had the toothache in 
his spectacles, I thought maybe he’d make us 
come this morning.” 

“I didn’t hear the bell ring, so I’m sure there’s 
no school,” said Toodle. “And if it’s just the 
same to you, Billie and Johnnie, I wish you 
wouldn’t speak about yesterday. I want to for- 
get all about how Noodle and I rolled the big 
stones down the mud slide and broke the dam, 
making a lot of trouble for Grandpa Whackum.” 

“All right, we won’t speak any more about 

175 




170 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


it,” said Johnnie, pleasantly. “But I’ll tell you 
why I’m so glad there’s no school today. It’s 
because Billie and I are going after chestnuts.’ 

“Chestnuts!” exclaimed Toodle, the beaver 

boy, looking at his tail to be sure there were no 

stickery bramble briars on it. “Where are they?” 

* 

“Oh, they grow on a tree like hickory nuts,” 
said Johnnie, “only they come all wrapped up in 
a big burr, with sharp points on, and we have to 
wait for the frost to open the burr before we can 
get the nuts out.” p 

“And when we do get them! Oh, yum-yum!” 
cried Billie. “How good they are — even better 
than ice cream!” 

“Oh, now I know what you mean,” said Too- 
dle. “I have seen chestnuts, but I always 
thought they came roasted, and grew on a wagon 
that an Italian gentleman pushed around the 
street, on two wheels. So chestnuts grow on 
trees, eh?” 

“To be sure,” said Billie, “and if you like you 
may come with Johnnie and me when we gather 
some today.” 

“I’d just love to!” cried Toodle and he felt 
so happy that he tried to stand up on the end of 
his tail. But it was too broad and flat, and, 
though it was, as are all beavers’ tails, good to sit 


Toodle and the Chestnuts 


177 


on, like a stool, Toodle could not stand upon its 
end. 

So, the consequence .was, Toodle fell over 
backward, but his coat of fur (getting ready for 
winter) was so thick that he never felt his tum- 
ble any more than if he had landed in a feather 
bed, or in a basket of soap bubbles, which are as 
soft as anything. I know of. 

“Where’s Noodle?” asked Johnnie, when 
Toodle had picked himself up and brushed the 
dirt off his coat by fanning himself with his wide 
tail. “Where is Noodle, Toodle?” 

“Oh, he went to the store for mamma. She 
wanted some molasses to make a birch bark pud- 
ding with. We needn’t wait for Noodle, if you 
are going after chestnuts. I heard him say he 
was going to play football with Munchie Trot, 
the pony boy, when he came back from the store. 
If we get any chestnuts I’ll save him some, any- 
how.” 

“Oh, we’re sure to get some,” spoke Billie. 

“Yes, for we know where lots of trees grow,” 
added Johnnie. “Come along now, Toodle.” 

So Toodle, the little beaver boy, and Johnnie 
and Billie Bushy tail, the squirrels, started after 
chestnuts. 

On and on they went through the woods and 
as they went Toodle sang this little song, which 


178 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


he made up all himself, without anyone helping 
him : 

“Chestnuts grow on big trees, 

Almost to the sky. 

And if you ever climb one 
Don’t go up too high. 

“If you take a tumble,, 

Don’t fall on your head, 

Unless you put under you 
Mamma’s feather bed.” 

“Well, well!” laughed Billie Bushytail. 
“That’s pretty good!” 

“It surely is,” said his brother Johnnie. “But 
how can you tell when you’re going to fall, Too- 
dle, so as to have the feather bed with you?” 

“I guess you’d have to take it along each time 
you went nutting,” said the little beaver boy. “I 
only put the feather bed in the verse to make it 
rhyme, anyhow. You don’t really need it.” 

Then thev went on a little farther and soon 
they had come to the place where the chestnut 
trees grew. 

“Now, Billie and I will climb up,” said 
Johnnie. “We’ll knock the chestnuts down 
to you, Toodle, and you can gather them into a 
pile. When we have all we want we’ll divide 
them.” 


Toodle and the Chestnuts 


179 


“Very good,” said the little beaver boy, who 
knew he could not climb a tree as well as can 
squirrels. “And if you get up the tree and can’t 
get down again, I can gnaw it down for you, 
with my big orange-colored teeth. And I’ll let 
it fall so gently that you won’t be hurt.” 

“Thank you,” said Billie, “but I guess we can 
get down, Toodle.” 

Up the chestnut tree scrambled the squirrel 
boys and soon they were throwing down lots of 
chestnuts to Toodle, who gathered them into a 
pile. Once in a while, a chestnut would hit the 
little beaver boy on the head, but he did not mind 
that. 

“You want to look out, though, if any of the 
big, round, stickery chestnut burrs fall on you,” 
said Billie. “Of course we wouldn’t mean to 
throw any on you and there are not many left 
that aren’t opened, but one might accidentally 
hit you.” 

“Oh, I’ll look out,” laughed Toodle. 

Well, some of the prickly burrs did come 
down, but they did not hit Toodle, and he brushed 
them to one side, in a pile, with his thick, strong 
tail, which even a chestnut burr could not hurt. 

“Well, I guess we have all the nuts off this 
tree,” said Billie, after a bit. “Come on down, 
Johnnie, and we’ll go look for another one,” and 


180 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


down the squirrel boys scrambled, as quickly as 
a monkey on a stick, or a jumping- jack, if you 
prefer that. So Toodle didn’t have to gnaw the 
tree down. 

“We’ll go over there by that old stump,” said 
Billie, pointing to it with his tail. 

“Shall I come?” asked Toodle. 

“No, you had better stay here and keep guard 
over the chestnuts on the ground,” said Johnnie. 
“Some one might come and take them while we 
are gone. We won’t be long, and if there are 
any nuts on the trees over there we’ll come back 
and get you, and these nuts too.” 

So away went Billie and Johnnie, leaving 
Toodle on guard by the chestnuts. At first noth- 
ing happened, and Toodle was thinking he could 
even take a little sleep, when, all of a sudden, out 
from behind a stump came a big, black bear. Oh, 
but he was a bad one; and he came closer and 
closer to Toodle, until he stood right in front of 
the little beaver boy, all ready to grab him. 

“Ah, ha!” growled the bear. “Now I have 
you !” 

“Oh, dear!” cried Toodle. “What do you 
want?” 

“I want you and the chestnuts, too,” said the 
bad bear. “Come, get ready! I’m going to 
carry you off to my den!” and he came nearer 
to poor Toodle. 


Toodle and the Chestnuts 


181 


The little beaver boy looked to see if he could 
find anyone to help him. But Billie and Johnnie 
Bushytail were far off, looking for more chest- 
nut trees, and no one else was near. Even when 
Toodle whacked with his tail on the ground, the 
way his papa had taught him to do when there 
was danger, no one came to help the beaver boy. 

“Well, here’s where I grab you!” growled 
the bear, and he was just going to hug Toodle in 
his sharp claws and maybe scratch him, for all I 
can tell, when, all of a sudden, Toodle saw a big 
pile of the prickly chestnut burrs he had brushed 
together. 

“Ah, ha!” thought Toodle. “These will do 
for that bear.” 

And with one sweep of his tail along the 
ground, Toodle sent those burrs in a regular 
shower in the bear’s face. The sharp, prickly 
stickers stuck in the soft and tender nose of that 
bear and made him sneeze and cough, and have 
the toothache and turn a somersault all at once. 
And then the bear cried: 

“Oh, woe is me! I’m all stuck up. I guess 
I’ll go home!” 

And home to his den he went, leaving Toodle 
and the chestnuts alone, and pretty soon Billie 
and Johnnie came back, not having found any 
more nut-trees. So Toodle told them about the 
bear, and how he had driven him off, and the 


182 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


squirrels said the beaver boy was very brave. 
Then they divided the chestnuts, and went home, 
and now it’s time for you to go to bed. 

But on the page after this, if the piece of 
cheese doesn’t jump out of the mouse-trap and 
scare the clothesline into the waste paper basket, 
I’ll tell you about Toodle and Noodle on the ice. 


STORY XXV 


TOODLE AND NOODLE ON THE ICE 


“Come, boys! Get up!” called Mrs. Flat- 
tail, the beaver lady, who was the mother of the 
two little beaver boys. “Time to get up or you’ll 
be late for school!” and she pounded on the ceil- 
ing with a nice piece of birch tree stick, from 
which she gnawed the bark so that from it she 
could make griddle cakes for breakfast. 

Toodle put one paw out of his bed, which 
had been made in a pile of nice clean shavings. 

“Bur-r-r-r-r-r !” he cried, pulling his paw 
back quickly again under the warm bed quilt, 
made of soft brown leaves, sewed together. 
“Bur-r-r-r-r ! It’s awful cold!” 

“Is it?” asked Noodle, rubbing his eyes with 
his paws. “Is it cold, Toodle?” 

“Indeed it is,” replied Toodle. “Just put 
your paw out and see.” 

Noodle did so. 

“My goodness me, sakes alive, and some icicle 

soup!” he cried. “I should say it was cold! 

There’ll be skating this morning, I guess. Is 

Grandpa Whackum down there?” he called to his 

mamma, who was already cooking the griddle 

183 * 


184 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


cakes, and putting the maple sugar on the back 
of the stove, where it would keep warm. 

“Yes, I’m here,” answered Grandpa Whack - 
um, the oldest beaver of them all. “I’m down 
here, boys, and if you don’t soon come down here 
too. I’ll go up there and tickle you so you won’t 
know whether you’re standing on your head or 
on your tail. Are you coming?” 

“Indeed we are,” answered Noodle, and then, 
getting brave, he suddenly threw back the leaf- 
bedquilt and jumped out into the middle or the 
room that was built upstairs in the beaver house, 
which stood in the middle of a pond of water. 

Beavers, you know, are little animals like 
muskrats, and they just love the water, as I have 
already told you. They love it so much that 
nearly always they build their houses right in a 
pond, which they make by raising a dam to keep 
the water from running away, just as you do in 
the gutter on a rainy day. 

“See who’ll be dressed first!” cried Noodle, 
and then Toodle jumped out on the cold floor. 
Soon they were both dressed, for beaver boys 
have so much fur that they do not need to wear 
many clothes, even in winter. 

“I won!” cried Noodle, who finished the last 
button on his shoes just as his brother Toodle was 
beginning to fasten his. “I’m dressed first.” 

“Oh, well, I don’t mind,” said Toodle. “I’ll 


Toodle and Noodle on the Ice 


185 


be washed first!” and he was, because there was 
only one wash basin in the boys’ room and only 
one of them could get his paws in it at a time. 

“Come! Come!” cried Mrs. Flat-tail again. 
"The cakes are getting cold, boys.” 

“I’ll be down stairs first!” cried Noodle, and 
he ran for the banister, reached it ahead of his 
brother, and down he slid — “ker-bang!” landing 
on the kitchen rug. So he was downstairs first. 
Then both the little beaver boys ate as many 
birch-bark pancakes as were good for them, and 
Crackie, their little sister, ate two and part of an- 
other one. 

“Oh, look at our pond!” cried Toodle, as he 
gazed out of the window. “It’s all frozen over!” 

“So it is!” said Noodle. “Oh, it must be very 
cold!” 

“Yes, you had better get out your skates and 
skate to school,” said Grandpa Whackum, who 
had finished his breakfast. 

“But we have no ice skates,” said Toodle, 
“and I don’t believe roller skates would be very 
good.” 

“Not on ice,” answered Grandpa Whackum. 
“But I’ll show you how to make ice skates. If I 
had some long, clean bones now — ” 

“I know where there are some!” cried Crackie. 
“I saw Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow, the puppy 


186 Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


dog boys, dragging some bones over on shore yes- 
terday.” 

“The very thing!” cried Grandpa Whackum. 
“I’ll swim to shore, under the ice, and get them. 
Then I’ll make skates for you two beaver boys.” 

While the children were finishing their nice 
warm breakfast, Grandpa Whackum dived out 
through the front door of the beaver house. This 
door was under water, and the old gentleman 
beaver soon found himself under the ice that cov- 
ered the top of the pond. But he was used to 
that. So he swam to shore until he found a place 
where the ice was broken through in a round hole. 

Then, he popped out and along the frozen 
bank of the beaver pond he ran until he found 
the bones the little puppy dog boys had been 
playing with the day before. 

“These bones will make fine skates for the 
boys,” said Grandpa Whackum. “They are long 
and straight and smooth.” 

Down under the ice he went again, and soon 
he was once more in the beaver house. Toodle 
and Noodle were getting their books ready to 
start for school. 


“I think it is too cold for you to go todav, 
Craekie,” said Mrs. Flat-tail.” 

“Oh, mamma, I don’t want to stay home! I 
want to go to school today!” cried the little beaver 
girl. “I know all my lessons.” 


Toodle and Noodle on the Ice 


187 


“We could pull her along on our tails for a 
sled,” said Toodle. 

“Especially if we skate,” added his brother. 

“Oh, you’ll skate, all right!” said Grandpa 
Whackum, as he went on making the bone skates. 
It was quite easy. All he had to do was to fasten 
some strings to the bones, so Toodle and Noodle 
could tie them to their hind paws. Then they 
could glide along on the bones, over the ice, just 
as you boys and girls use your roller skates. 

Toodle and Noodle were delighted with the 
bone skates their grandpa made for them. 

“It won’t take us long to get to school on 
these,” said Toodle. 

“That is, if we don’t fall down much,” agreed 
Noodle. 

“Oh! I’ll show you how to skate so you will 
not fall down very much,” said Grandpa Whack- 
um. 

So they all went out on the ice, the old gen- 
tleman beaver himself putting on a pair of bone 
skates. Then he showed Toodle and Noodle how 
to strike out, and how to glide, and they were 
soon able to skate very well. 

“Ding-dong!” rang the school bell. 

“Come on!” cried Todle. “We’ll be late!” 

“Wait for me! Wait for me!” cried Crackie, 
as her brothers started off without her. 

“Sit on my tail, Crackie,” invited Toodle. 


188 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


“I’ll give you a ride first, and then Noodle can 
take a turn. And you can carry our books.” 

So little Crackie sat down on the broad flat 
tail of her brother Toodle, which, as you can see 
by the picture, was almost as good as a sled. I 
wish I could show you a picture of Crackie rid- 
ing to school this way, but I am not allowed, as 
I don’t know how to draw. 

Anyhow, off the two little beaver boys 
started, over the ice, on their bone skates, that 
were tied fast to their hind paws. Crackie went 
with them. 

“Ding-dong!” rang the school bell. Faster 
and faster skated Toodle and Noodle. They felt 
sure they would not be late this time. 

Pretty soon Crackie jumped over on Noo- 
dle’s tail, and on they went faster than ever. 

But something happened. They were almost 
at the school, which was in an old boat, that was 
now frozen fast in the ice, when, all of a sudden, 
out from behind a stump popped a hungry bear. 
Oh, he was so hungry! He hadn’t had his break- 
fast, and when he saw Toodle and Noodle and 
Crackie, he just smacked his lips, and rolled out 
his red tongue, nearly biting it with his sharp 
teeth, and that bear cried : 

“Oh, ho! Now I will have something to eat!” 

He ran after the beaver children, and Crackie 
called : 


Toodle and Noodle on the Ice 


189 


“Oh, Toodle! Oh, Noodle! Skate! Skate 
as fast as you can away from that bear!” 

“That’s what we will !” shouted Toodle. Then 
the two beaver boys skated faster than they had 
ever skated before, Noodle pulling Crackie 
along on his tail. On came the bear. He was 
getting nearer and nearer, when, all of a sudden, 
Noodle cried: 

“Quick, Toodle, turn to the left. There’s a 
hole right through the ice!” 

Toodle and Noodle both turned aside and 
skated past the hole, but the bear couldn’t stop 
himself, nor turn quickly enough, and “plump!” 
he went into the ice-cold water, making a spray 
just like a fountain. And he got all wet and 
frozen, and his feet stuck to the ice when he got 
out, so he couldn’t chase Toodle and Noodle or 
Crackie any more, and the beaver children got 
safely to school, a little out of breath, but other- 
wise all right. Every one said they were very 
brave. 

So that’s how Toodle and Noodle skated on 
the ice and saved Crackie from the bear, and 
next, if the water pitcher doesn’t fall down cel- 
lar and put the furnace fire out in the ash can to 
sleep all night, I’ll tell you about Toodle and 
Noodle playing football. 


STORY XXYI 


TOODLE AND NOODLE PLAY FOOTBALL 

It was quite cold and shivery one day when 
Toodle and Noodle Flat-tail, the little beaver 
boys, started for school. It was not quite as 
cold as the day they had skated on the ice, riding 
their sister Crackie on their tails, when they got 
away from the bear, who fell into the water, as 
I told you yesterday. 

No, it was not quite as cold as that, but still 
it was very shivery, and as Toodle and Noodle 
hurried along, with their books tucked under 
their left forelegs, they put their paws in their 
pockets. 

“There’ll be lots of skating if this keeps on,” 
said Noodle. 

“Indeed there will,” said his brother Toodle. 

And the reason there was no skating just then 
was because there had been a little warm spell, 
and the ice on the beaver pond had melted, crack- 
ing all up, and was floating about in chunks, like 
little boats. But they were cold little boats, and 
the beavers did not like to swim among them. 

Crackie was not going to school that day, as 

she had the sniffle-snuffles and her nose was all 

190 







Toodle and Noodle Play Football 191 

red and her eyes ached and filled with water, and 
she had to have a piece of red flannel around her 
throat. Oh, well, you know how it is when you 
have the sniffle-snuffles, don’t you? So there’s 
no use in me stopping any longer over that part. 
I may as well get on with the story. 

“I wish it would snow,” said Toodle, as he 
stumbled over a humpy place in the woods 
through which he and his brother were going just 
then to get to the school, which had been moved 
to a hollow stump, instead of being in the boat, 
as before. 

Professor Rat, the principal, said it was get- 
ting too cold to have school in the boat any longer 
so he and the lady bug teacher, and the janitor, 
and the blackboards and the bell, all moved into 
the hollow stump — not the one where the bear 
lived, though. No, indeed! I guess not! 

Of course the bell and blackboards didn’t 
move themselves from the boat-school into the 
school stump. No, the janitor and Professor Rat 
did that, and the lady bug teacher looked on and 
said : 

“Oh, dear! Isn’t it dreadful hard work to 
move a school?” 

“Why do you wish it to snow?” asked Noodle 
of Toodle, after a while. 

“So we could go sleigh riding and build a 
snow house — ” 


192 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


“Oh, that’s so! I forgot what fun we can 
have when it snows!” cried Noodle. “I was 
thinking that it would spoil the skating, but there 
isn’t any to spoil now. Let’s wish real hard that 
it would snow.” 

So the beaver boys wished as hard as they 
could, and looked up at the sky, hoping to see 
some of the white flakes sifting down. But they 
saw none. 

“We’d better hurry,” called Noodle. “There 
goes the first bell and we’ve got quite a long way 
to go yet!” 

So the two little beaver boys hurried on and, 
just as they got to the bridge over the tiny little 
brook that sang a merry song in the summer, but 
which did not sing so merrily in winter, Toodle 
and Noodle heard some one saying: 

“Oh, who will buy? Oh, who will buy. 

My last balloon before I cry?” 

“Hark! What’s that?” whispered Noodle. 

“I don’t know,” answered Toodle. “It 
sounded like — like — somebody!” 

“Of course it was somebody,” spoke Noodle. 
“But who? That’s the question.” 

They stood on the little bridge over the small 
brook and once more they heard the voice say- 
ing, louder than before, this time: 


Toodle and Noodle Play Football 193 


“Oh, buy it quick! Oh, buy it quick 

My red balloon upon a stick.” 

“That’s funny,” said Toodle, looking at his 
brother, who was sitting down on his tail to rest 
himself. “Do you s’pose that could be the circus 
elephant? He used to like balloons.” 

“It doesn’t sound like the elephant,” answered 
Noodle.' “Still, you never can tell — ” 

“Then the voice, that seemed to come from 
under the bridge, interrupted the little beaver 
boy by saying: 

“Please buy this red balloon of me. 

It is my last one; can’t you see? 

I’ll make the price — Oh, very low. 

For just one cent I’ll let it go.” 

“Oh, Toodle!” cried Noodle, “have you a 
cent? If you have let’s buy this balloon!” 

“But how do we know who is selling it, or 
where he is, or whether it’s really a balloon or 
not ?” asked Toodle, looking in his pocket to see 
if he still had the penny Grandpa Whackum had 
given him the night before. 

“Well, we can look under the bridge;” said 
Noodle, “and find out. Any one who sells bal- 
loons — especially red ones — is sure to be kind 
and good. I’m going to take a look through the 


194 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


crack in the bridge. We have time before the 
last bell rings.” 

So Noodle peeked down through a crack in 
the bridge floor, and there sitting on a stone near 
the water was a little monkey-doodle boy, with 
one red balloon tied to a stick. 

“Do you really want to sell that balloon for a 
penny?” asked Noodle. “We’ll buy it from you 
if you do.” 

The monkey looked up and saw the beaver 
boys, and in an instant he had scrambled up on 
the bridge. 

“It is my last balloon,” said the monkey- 
doodle. “I am all sold out except this one, so I 
am going to let you have it for a penny. Circus 
time is past, and I want to go and take a long 
sleep. I don’t need the balloon any more.” 

“Well, then, we’ll take it,” said Toodle, lift- 
ing the penny out of his pocekt. “We can have 
fun flying it.” 

“Oh, I can tell you how to have more fun with 
it than that,” said the monkey-doodle, as he got 
ready to go away down South where it is warm, 
for monkeys like it warm in the winter. “You 
can play football with that balloon, and football 
is a very nice game for cold weather. It warms 
you. You must get some leather and make a 
covering for the red balloon. Then, when you 


Toodle and Noodle Play Football 195 


kick it, the balloon won’t burst. Make a foot- 
ball of it, I say.” 

‘‘I guess we will,” agreed Toodle. 

Well, the beaver boys went on to school, with 
their red balloon, and, in order that the teacher 
would not take it away from them in the class 
room, they tied it outside in a tree, the way Mary 
told her lamb to stay outside. But the lamb 
wouldn’t stay outside, and neither would the 
red balloon bootball. 

A window happened to be open, and all of a 
sudden the ball blew into the school, though it 
>vas still tied to the string on the tree branch. All 
the animal children in the hollow-stump school 
laughed and so did the teacher. 

“What are you going to do with it?” asked 
the lady bug of Toodle and Noodle, when they 
told her about their balloon, and when the win- 
dow had been shut so it couldn’t come in again. 

“Make a football of it,” answered Toodle. 

“Only we have to cover it with leather,” said 
Noodle, “so it won’t break.” 

“Oh, I’ll do that for you,” said the lady bug 
teacher, who liked boys. So that night she took 
the red balloon home with her and she made a 
leather cover for it, bringing it back next morn- 
ing. Oh, it was a fine football then! 

“Let’s have a game!” cried Johnnie Bushy- 
tail, the squirrel boy, as he gave the new football 


196 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


a kick that sent it away over the fence. It was 
so light you see — the football I mean, not the 
fence — that it flew all over. 

“All right, we’ll have some fun!” cried Too- 
dle, and then he and Noodle and Billie Bushy- 
tail and Sammie Littletail and all the animal 
boys, including Munchie Trot, the pony, played 
football in the school yard until it was time to 
go in. 

Now, though the boys didn’t know it, there 
was hiding behind the fence the same old bear 
that had chased Toodle and Noodle and Crackie 
one day on the ice. 

“I’ll just wait until one of those animal boys 
comes near this hole in the fence,” thought the 
bad bear, “then I’ll grab him and have a nice 
lunch.” 

Well, Toodle was going to kick the foot- 
ball and Noodle got away over by the fence to 
grab it when it came down. 

“Kick away!” called Noodle to Toodle. 

“And now is my chance to get him,” thought 
the bear. Toodle kicked the balloon-football as 
hard as he could and just as Noodle was going 
to get it, the bear made a grab for him. But all 
of a sudden, the wind blew the football off to one 
side, and instead of Noodle getting it, that foot- 
ball hit the bear on the nose. Smacko ! Cracko ! 

The football was so light and fluffy that it 


Toodle and Noodle Play Football 197 


tickled the bear and made him sneeze, and when- 
ever a bear sneezes he can bite no one except his 
own tongue. That’s what this bear did, and he 
was so angry that he gave three howls and part 
of another one, and then he ran home to his den 
where he belonged. 

Then the football game went on until it was 
time to go into school and all the boy animals said 
they had had a fine time. 

They thanked Toodle and Noodle for buying 
the balloon-football from the monkey-doodle and 
many times that winter, when it was not too cold, 
there were football games. 

So no more just now, if you please, but in 
the next story, if the rocking chair doesn’t step 
on the molasses jug’s ear and make the popcorn 
balls cry to go to the moving pictures, I’ll tell 
you about Crackie Flat-tail and Joie Kat. 


STORY XXVII 


CRACKIE AND JOIE KAT 

“Mamma, is Crackie going to school today ?” 
asked Toodle Flat-tail, the little beaver boy, one 
morning, when it was almost time for the first 
bell to ring. 

Mrs. Flat-tail looked out of the window of 
the beaver house in the pond behind the dam, and 
said: 

“No, I think not. Her sniffle-snuffles are not 
much better today than they were yesterday. 
Besides, it is rather warm weather now, the pond 
is not frozen and it looks like snow. I think I 
shall keep her home until tomorrow, at least. 
Now run along, Toodle — you and Noodle. And 
be good boys.” 

“We will,” promised Noodle, as he caught up 
the red balloon-football, covered with leather. 
He and his brother and the other animal boys 
thought they would have a fine game that day. 

Crackie, the little beaver girl, felt very lone- 
some after her brothers had left her. She had 
not been going to school very long, and she was 
in the kindergarten, but still she liked her teacher 

and her schoolmates. However, when a beaver 

198 


Crackie and Joie Cat 


199 


girl has the sniffle-snuffles she can’t very well go 
to school, for she sneezes all the time; and when 
the teacher asks how many three and two are she 
has to say: 

“Ak-er-choo,” which isn’t the right answer at 
all. 

So, as I say, Crackie felt a little lonesome. 
But her mamma let her help dry the breakfast 
dishes, and Crackie only dropped a saucer, which 
didn’t break very much, only about half of it 
falling off. 

“You are doing very well, Crackie,” said Mrs. 
Flat-tail with a smile at the little beaver girl. 
“Soon we won’t have to call you Crackie at all.” 
You see Crackie had such an odd name because 
she used to be always dropping and cracking 
such things as dishes, and ice cream cones, and 
lollypops and all like that. 

Well, after the dishes were dried Grandpa 
Whackum, the old beaver gentleman, said: 

“I think I will go out and take a look at the 
dam. It may have some holes in it, where a bear 
or wolf tried to tear it down last night, and if the 
dam breaks, and all the water runs out of our 
pond, we will have a hard time, for it will not 
rain much more this year.” 

So Grandpa Whackum started out, but just 
as he was going to dive down through the front 


200 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


door, which was under water so no bad animals 
could get in, the old beaver gentleman cried : 

“Oh, dear me, suz dud! There’s a button oft 
my overcoat right where it goes around my neck. 
I must have it sewed on, or the cold wind will 
come in, and I'll have the epizootic, and the 
sniffle-snuffles, too.” 

“I’ll sew it on for you, Grandpa Whackum,” 
said Crackie, kindly. 

So sitting down on her tail, which was like a 
stool, you know, the little beaver girl used a 
thorn from the bramble briar bush for a needle, 
and some strong strings of dried grass for thread, 
and so she sewed the button on her grandpa’s 
coat. 

Then he went out to look at the dam, that 
kept the water in the pond from running off — 
maybe to a moving picture show — and Mrs. Flat- 
tail said: 

“Well, I do declare! It’s almost ten o’clock, 
and I promised I’d go over to Mrs. Wibble- 
wobble’s house, and show her how to make corn- 
meal fritters. Would you mind staying alone a 
little while, Crackie?” 

“Oh, no, mamma, of course not,” answered 
the little beaver girl. “I’ll just make a new 
dress for my doll Anna Jane Huckelberry Pud- 
dingstick. She needs a new dress very badly.” 

Mrs. Flat-tail went out and that left Crackie 


Crackie and Joie Cat 


201 


all alone in the beaver house. • But still she did 
not mind. She was sewing away, and wondering 
whether she should put a thing-a-ma-bob on the 
skirt, with three rows of lace inserted on the bias, 
or whether the dress would look nicer with some 
apple pie frosting, trimmed with cocoanut mac- 
aroons, on the what-you-may-call-it. She had 
just about decided to use the ice cream puffs 
on the sleeves, when, all of a sudden, Crackie 
heard a terrible noise outside. 

Some one cried. 

“Ha! Now I’ll get you! Now I have you! 
Oh, you can’t get away from me now.” 

And then another voice said: 

“Meaouw! Meaouw! Meaouw!” 

Next there came a big thump on top of the 
beaver house that was built in the middle of the 
pond, and a voice cried out: 

“Oh! whoever is in there please let me in! 
Toodle! Noodle! Please let me in!” 

“My goodness!” cried Crackie, and she 
jumped up so suddenly that her rubber doll, 
who was asleep in her lap, fell to the floor. But 
it doesn’t hurt rubber dolls to fall, and this one 
went right on sleeping just as if nothing had 
happened. “What can that be?” thought 
Crackie, wishing her mamma would come back. 

“Oh, please let me in!” cried the voice again, 
and there was a pounding on the roof of the 


202 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


house. Outside, as though it came from the 
opposite bank of the beaver pond, another voice 
said: 

“Oh, ho! You can’t get away from me that 
way. I’ll be there in a minute!” 

There was a splashing in the water, and the 
voice on the beaver house roof begged once 
more : 

“Oh, will no one let me in? Toodle! Noodle!” 

“Who — who are you?” asked Crackie, think- 
ing maybe it was a bad fox, trying to play a 
trick on her, and pretending to be some one in 
trouble. “Who are you, and what is the mat- 
ter?” went on Crackie. 

“Oh, I am Joie Kat, the brother of Tommie 
and Kittie Kat,” was the answer. “I was out 
walking in the woods, and a bad dog chased me. 
I ran up a tree and out on a limb that was high 
up in the air, right over your house. Then I 
slipped and fell, but the dog still kept after me. 
I fell on the roof of your house, where I am 
now, and if you don’t let me in that dog will 
soon swim over here from shore and grab me. 
Oh, please, let me in, whoever you are!” 

“I’m Crackie Flat-tail,” said the little beaver 
girl. “I couldn’t go to school today because I 
have the sniffle-snuffles, but my brothers went, 
and I’m home all alone, and — ” 

“Oh, if you please,” meaouwed Joie, “you can 


Crackie and Joie Cat 


203 


tell me all that when I get in. The dog is com- 
ing — the dog is swimming to get me!” 

And Crackie could hear the dog going: “Bow 
— wow — wow,” like anything; really she could. 

“Of course. I’ll let you in,” said the little 
beaver girl, so she opened a window near the 
roof, and Joie Kat, being a very good climbing 
kitten boy, easily got in it, and so he was safe 
from the dog for a while, anyhow. 

“Oh, ho!” growled the dog, when he saw what 
Joie had done. “You needn’t think you can get 
away from me. I’m going to stay here until 
you come out; that’s what I’ll do!” 

“Will he?” asked Crackie. 

“I — I’m afraid he will,” said Joie, sadly like. 

“Just wait until my Grandpa Whackum 
comes back,” said Cracie. “He’ll attend to your 
case; you bad old dog!” and, leaning out of the 
window, Crackie threw the potato-masher at the 
growling — barking creature. But girls — even 
beaver girls — can’t throw very straight, so 
Crackie did not hit the dog. 

“Ha! Ha! Ho! Ho!” laughed the dog. “You 
can’t scare me! I’m not afraid of you.” 

“Oh, what shall I do?” asked Joie Kat, who 
was all in a tremble. “I wish I’d never climbed 
the big tree!” 

“Oh, I’ll think of a way to save you,” said 
Crackie. 


204 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


Just then along came Grandpa Whackum, the 
oldest beaver of them all. He saw the dog on 
shore, but, very wisely, Grandpa Whackum 
dived down under water and swam into the 
house without the dog seeing him. Then Crackie 
and Joie told the old beaver gentleman what had 
happened. 

“Ha! I’ll fix that dog!” cried Grandpa 
Whackum. So he called all the other big beav- 
ers together under water and they slipped up 
on shore behind that dog, when he wasn’t look- 
ing, and when he was just thinking and wonder- 
ing how he could get Joie, all the beavers threw 
mud with their tails all over that dog until he 
looked like a mud pie, or maybe a mud puddle. 

“Oh, wow!” cried the dog, and then he had 
to run home and jump in the bath tub to get 
clean. 

“Now he’s gone and you can safely go home, 
Joie,” said Crackie. 

“Oh, but your house is in the middle of water 
and I can’t swim,” said the little kitten boy. 
“How can I get home?” 

“I’ll tell you,” spoke Crackie. “We’ll get a 
wooden box and make a little boat of it and in 
that you can sail to shore, and go home without 
even getting your tail wet.” 

And that’s what they did. Grandpa 
Whackum made the box boat and Crackie 


Crackie and Joie Cat 


205 


helped Joie get into it through the outside upper 
window, for the front door of the beaver house 
was under water. Then Joie sailed safely home, 
and he never climbed tall trees again. 

So no more now, but in the next story, if the 
clothes basket doesn’t go to sleep out in the ham- 
mock and catch cold in its handles, I’ll tell you 
about Toodle and Jimmie Wibblewobble. 


STORY XXVIII 


TOODLE AND JIMMIE 

Toodle and Noodle Flat-tail, the little beaver 
boys, were playing on the bank of the pond in 
which their house was built. They had made a 
mud-slide, which was slippery with water, and 
down that they were coasting, having almost as 
much fun as if there was snow and ice on the 
ground and they had red sleds, with blue tops, 
to ride on down the long hill. 

“Come on!” called Toodle, when he had slid 
down backward, just to see how it would feel, 
“let’s go down backward again, Noodle, and see 
who will slide the farthest.” 

“All right,” agreed Noodle. “Wait until I 
get to the top, so we can both start even and at 
the same time.” 

Up the mud slide, which was just a bank of 
dirt near an old stump, scrambled Toodle and 
Noodle and then they got ready to go down 
backward. 

“Are you all ready?” asked Noodle. 

“All ready!” cried Toodle. 

“Then here we go!” shouted Noodle, and down 

the mud slide they went backward. 

206 


Toodle and Jimmie 


207 


But, oh, dear me! something happened. Just 
as they got to the bottom of the little slippery 
hill, old Mr. Chunky-lunky, the biggest, fattest 
beaver gentleman in the pond, came walking 
along. He was so fat that he couldn’t see his 
shoes when he stood up straight and his neck 
was so thick he couldn’t bend it, so of course he 
did not see Toodle and Noodle sliding right to- 
ward him. 

The first thing he knew his hind paws were 
knocked out from under him, and down he came 
— “ker-flummux !” 

“Ugh!” grunted old Mr. Chunky-lunky, and 
that was all he could say just then, for the breath 
was knocked out of him. He nearly sat down 
on Toodle and Noodle, who had bumped into 
him without in the least meaning to, and, if old 
Mr. Chunky - 
beaver boys he would have squashed him flatter 
than a pancake. But this did not happen, I’m 
glad to say. 

“Why — er — what — er — what happened ?” 
panted old Mr. Chunky-lunky as he got up and 
brushed the dirt out of his ears. 

“I — I guess w T e happened,” said Toodle. 

“You see, we were sliding down the mud-hill 
backward,” explained Noodle. 

“No,” spoke Mr. Chunky-lunky, “I didn’t 


lunky had sat down on either of the 


208 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


see — that was the trouble. But, never mind, 
boys, you didn’t mean to do it, I’m sure.” 

“Oh, no, we wouldn’t think of doing such a 
thing!” cried Noodle. “Would we, Toodle?” 

“No, indeed!” answered Toodle, and then he 
picked up old Mr. Chunky-lunky’s hat to hand 
to him. The hat was a little muddy, but just 
then along came Jimmie Wibblewobble, the boy 
duck, and with his wing feathers he dusted the 
dirt off the beaver gentleman’s hat until it was 
as good as new. 

“Now, boys, don’t slide down any more hills 
backward,” said old Mr. Chunky-lunky as he 
waddled away, with his head high in the air, 
because he was too fat to look down. 

Well, Toodle and Noodle played on the mud- 
slide for some time longer, and then, all of a 
sudden — no, a big black bear did not jump out 
from behind a lolly-pop ice cream cone. I was 
going to put a bear in this story, but I’ve 
changed my mind about it. 

So, all of a sudden, Mrs. Flat-tail called out 
from the front stoop: 

“Hi, Noodle, Toodle! I want one of vou to 

% 

go to the store for me.” 

“Let Toodle go, ma!”cried Noodle. 

“Oh, no, let Noodle go, ma!” cried Toodle. 

“I went last time,” said Noodle, sort of quick 


Toodle and Jimmie 


209 


“Well, I went with you, so it’s your turn to 
go now all alone/’ spoke Toodle. 

“Come, boys,” cried Mrs. Flat-tail. “I’m in 
a hurry. I want a cocoanut to make a cake.” 

“Oh, I’ll go!” cried Toodle, before his brother 
could say anything. “I’ll go, mamma!” 

“Ha!” laughed Jimmie Wibblewobble. “I 
guess I’ll go too, Toodle. I could help you 
carry the cocoanut if you happened to drop it.” 

“Let’s all go!” suggested Noodle. “Because 
if the cocoanut does fall and break, some one 
would have to pick up the pieces, and if there 
were any very little ones it might be better to 
eat them instead of letting them go to waste. 
We’ll all go!” 

So it was decided and the two beaver boys 
and Jimmie Wibblewobble, the duck, started 
out, Mrs. Flat-tail giving them the money for 
the cocoanut and also some for a cake of soap. 
But, of course, a cake of soap is not good to eat. 

On and on the boy beavers and the duck went 
to the store, and soon they reached it. The store 
was kept by an old beaver gentleman named 
Skillv-scaly, because he was always weighing 
things on his scales. But he was no relation to 
the skillery-scalery alligator, with the humps on 
his tail. 

Toodle and Noodle got what their mamma 
had sent them for and Toodle said: 


210 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


“I’ll carry the cocoanut; you might drop it, 
Noodle.” 

“So might you,” said his brother. “We can 
carry it between us and Jimmie will take the 
cake of soap. See, we will tie the cocoanut to 
a long pole and carry it between us.” 

“That’s a good plan,” said the little duck boy. 

So the round, brown, shaggy cocoanut was 
fixed up that way and slung on a pole between 
Toodle and Noodle, who carried it on their 
shoulders. Jimmie carried the soap on his back, 
where it would not get wet. 

On the way home the beaver boys and the 
little duck chap came to a new pond of water. 
It had been built by some new beavers, who 
raised up a dam at one end, so the water could 
not run away, for they wanted to have their 
houses in the water, you see. 

“Oh, let’s swim across this pond!” cried 
Noodle. 

“I’m with you,” said Jimmie, who, being a 
duck, could swim very well, you know. 

Of course, being a duck, Jimmie Wibble- 
wobble could not swim under water as can 
beaver boys. But for all that Jimmie did very 
well. 

“It won’t hurt the cocoanut to get wet,” said 
Toodle. “We can jump in the water and pull it 
after us like a boat.” 


Toodle and Jimmie 


211 


“To be sure,” said Noodle. 

“And I can swim with the soap on my back, 
so that will not get wet and melt,” said Jimmie. 

Into the water plunged the three friends, and 
Toodle and Noodle, pulling the cocoanut be- 
tween them, watched the big beavers at work, 
and made up their minds that they would tell 
their papa and mamma about the new neigh- 
bors, so they could pay them a visit. 

Well, everything was going along nicely, 
when, all of a sudden, as Jimmie was swimming 
close by an old log, he gave a sudden cry. 

“Quack! Quack! Quackity-quack !” he 
yelled. “Oh, dear!” 

“Why, what is the matter?” asked Toodle, 
quickly swimming up close to his friend. 

“Oh, something has hold of my leg, down 
under water,” said the duck boy. “I think it 
is a bad water rat. Oh, dear!” 

Jimmie pulled and tugged, trying to get 
loose, but he could not. ITe was held fast. 

“Quick!” cried Toodle to his brother Noodle. 
“You swim home and get Grandpa Whackum. 
He’ll know what to do. I’ll stay by Jimmie!” 

Off swam Noodle for help and Toodle stayed 

with the duck bov. And then the bad water rat, 

«/ 

who had hold of Jimmie’s leg under water, be- 
gan pulling him along to his den beneath the 
rushes. 


212 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


“Oh, save me! Save me!” cried poor Jimmie. 
“The rat is taking me away.” 

“I’ll see if I can save you!” cried Toodle, and 
down under the water he dived. Surely enough, 
he saw the bad rat who had hold of Jimmie’s 
leg. 

“Let go my friend!” cried Toodle, bravely. 

“No, no!” snapped the rat. “I’m going to eat 
him!” and that rat showed his teeth under water, 
which made them look very big, and he growled 
at Toodle so that the little beaver boy was fright- 
ened. 

Up he came out of the water. He did not 
know how to save Jimmne, until, all of a sud- 
den, he saw the cake of soap on the duck’s back. 
It had not fallen off, very luckily. 

“Ha!” cried Toodle. “I have it. I’ll make a 
lot of soapsuds in the water; it will get in the 
rat’s eyes, and he’ll have to let Jimmie go. 

No sooner said than done. Holding the cake 
of soap in his paws, Toodle sozzled it around in 
the water until he had made a thick lather. Of 
course, none got in his eyes, or in Jimmie’s. But 
the bad rat’s eyes got full of soapsuds, and so 
did his mouth, and you know how badly soap 
tastes. So the rat let go of Jimmie’s leg and 
swam off to wash in some clean water, crying: 

“Oh, dear! How my eyes hurt! Oh, that 
Toodle Flat-tail is too smart for me.” 


Toodle and Jimmie 


213 


And so Toodle saved Jimmie, and when 
Grandpa Whackum came swimming back with 
Noodle there was nothing for him to do. So 
the duck and the beavers swam home together, 
and Mrs. Flat-tail made a lovely cocoanut cake, 
without any soap in it, and gave them all some. 

And next, if the cork doesn’t pop out of the 
ink bottle and blacken the eye of the needle, 
when it tries to sew a button on the bean bag, 
I’ll tell you about Noodle helping Uncle Wig- 

gi!y- 


STORY XXIX 


NOODLE HELPS UNCLE WIGGILY 

Noodle and Toodle Flat-tail, the two little 
beaver boys, were in the hollow stump school, 
where Professor Rat and Miss Lady Bug 
taught and heard the lessons of the animal chil- 
dren. School had just begun, and the pupils 
were singing a little song that went something 
like this: 

“We dearly love our teacher. 

We love our nice school, too. 

We love to sing about our flag. 

The red, the w T hite, the blue! 

“We love to know our lessons. 

And then, when school is out, 

We laugh and sing like anything. 

And skip and jump about.” 

“Very good!” said Professor Rat, combing 
some cobwebs out of his whiskers with a piece 
of chalk. “Now, Miss Lady Bug and I will 
sing a song.” 

So first Profesor Rat sang this: 

214 












/ 


Noodle Helps Uncle Wiggily 


215 


“Its nice to be a pupil 
In a hollow tree-stump school. 

It’s nice to come in early, 

And never break a rule.” 

Then it was Miss Lady Bug’s turn, and, 
fluttering her wings, she sang: 

“The school bell goes ‘ding-dong, ding-dong!’ 

That’s really half of this — my song. 

The other half I now will sing: 

The school bell goes ‘dong-ding, dong-ding!’ ” 

Well, I wish you could have heard the animal 
boys and girls laugh at that. They laughed so 
much they could not study. Really, I wish you 
could have heard them. Oh, no, on second 
thought perhaps I don’t wish that. 

No; if you had heard them you wouldn’t want 
to study your lessons, and then you might be 
kept in, and you’d blame me for telling you 
about it. I guess it’s better, after all, that you 
didn’t hear them. 

Well, to go on with the story. I just wrote 
that first part while I was thinking up something 
else, just as the man in the circus goes hopping 
around on one leg, while he’s waiting for the 
elephant to get through eating peanuts so he can 
jump over his back. 


210 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


I mean the man can jump over the elephant’s 
back. Gracious! I hope you didn’t think I 
meant that the elephant would leap over the 
man’s back. No, indeed! Just supposing he 
should fall — I mean the elephant fall on the 
man. There wouldn’t be anything left of him; 
yould there? I mean anything left of the man. 

Well, anyhow, now to go on with the story. 

After the animal children got through laugh- • 
ing at Miss Lady Bug’s funny little song. Pro- 
fessor Rat said: 

“Noodle Flat-tail, you may stand up and 
read me the lesson in the book about the old 
lady hen finding a grain of corn, and planting 
it so that it grew up to be an orange tree with 
lemonade lollypops on it.” 

Now all the children liked that story better 
than any other in the book, so Noodle, the little 
beaver boy, was very glad indeed to stand up 
before all the class and read it. 

But when he looked among his books for his 
reader he could not find it. A queer look came 
over his funny face, and he said: 

“Oh, teacher, I guess I forgot, and left my 
book at home.” 

“You did?” cried Professor Rat, combing 
some more shavings out of his whiskers with 
one of the blackboard erasers. 

“Left your book home?” 


Noodle Helps Uncle Wiggily 


217 


“I think I must have — my reading book isn’t 
here,” went on Noodle, sort of flustered like. 

“Teacher! Teacher!” cried Joie Kat, snap- 
ping his paws like anything. “Teacher! 
Teacher!” 

“Well, what is it?” asked Professor Rat. 

“Maybe Noodle’s book is under his tail — he 
may be sitting on it,” said Joie, all excited like. 

And this may have been so, for beavers have 
very broad, flat tails, you know, and something 
might easily have been hidden under Noodle’s. 

Noodle lifted his tail up, when Joie Kat said 
that, but no reader book was there. 

“No, I must have left it home,” said Noodle. 

“Well, then you had better go home after it,” 
said Professor Rat, though not at all crossly. 
“Hurry along, Noodle, and you may read the 
lesson when you get back.” 

“Oh-o-o-o-o!” cried all the other animal girls 
and boys. And Billie Bushytail, the squirrel 
boy, said to his brother Johnnie, in a whisper, 
of course: 

“Say, I’m going to leave all my books home 
tomorrow.” 

“So am I,” spoke Johnnie, and Toodle Flat- 
tail said the same thing. 

Noodle tried to look as if he didn’t care when 
he left the school to go home after his reader 
book. But he was very glad to get out in the 


218 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


fresh air and sunshine, for it was a nice, fall 
day, although it did look as if it might snow 
soon. 

Well, Noodle reached his house all right, and 
got his book. His mamma was quite surprised 
to see him, and said he must not be so careless 
next time. Noodle said he would not. 

The little beaver boy w r as going along through 
the woods on his way back to school, when all 
of a sudden, just ahead of him, he saw a fox 
sneaking along. 

“Ah, ha!” thought Noodle. “I had better be 
careful. I will go around another way, I 
guess.” 

Well, just as he was going to do this, and 
maybe find a canal of water, so he could swim 
in that to school (knowing quite well that the 
fox would not go in water), just as Noodle was 
going to do this, he saw Uncle Wiggily, the old 
rabbit gentleman, hopping along. And Uncle 
Wiggily hadn’t noticed the bad old fox. 

But the bad old fox saw Uncle Wiggily Long- 
ears, and before Noodle could call out, to warn 
the rabbit gentleman, the fox sprang out, and 
grabbed him. Yes, sir; that fox grabbed Uncle 
Wiggily by the ears, and started to take him off 
to his den. 

“Oh, this must never be!” cried Noodle. 
“That fox must not eat Uncle Wiggily! How 


Noodle Helps Uncle Wiggily 


219 


can I stop him? In know. I’ll run on ahead 
and hide behind a stump. Then, when the fox 
gets there, I’ll jump out suddenly, and bark like 
old dog Percival. That will scare the fox so I 
hope he’ll run away.” 

So brave Noodle Flat-tail hurried on ahead, 
and hid behind the stump. And when the fox 
came up, dragging poor Uncle Wiggily by the 
ears, the beaver boy cried: 

“Boo! Bow-wow! Bur-r-r-r-r! Wuff! 
Skip out of here!” 

And that fox was so frightened, thinking 
maybe a hunter and his dog were after him, that 
he dropped the rabbit gentleman and away he 
ran, without once looking back. If he had done 
so he’d have seen that it was only little Noodle. 
But he didn’t. 

“Oh, Noodle!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “You 
saved my life! But, oh dear! That fox broke 
my crutch when he jumped on me, and he scared 
me so that my rheumatism is worse than ever. 
I can’t walk, and, if I stay here in the woods 
alone, the bad fox may come back and get me.” 

“Have no fears,” said Noodle bravely, just 
as the boy always spoke in the reader book. 
“Have no fears, Uncle Wiggily, I will gnaw 
you out another crutch.” 

So Noodle did this, with his strong orange- 
colored teeth. But, even with the new crutch. 


220 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


Uncle Wiggily Longears could not walk, and 
he said: 

“Oh, Noodle, I don’t know what to do! I 
think perhaps you had better go get Nurse Jane 
Fuzzy- Wuzzy to come for me in a wheelbarrow, 
or my automobile, if she can run it.” 

“But,” said Noodle, “if I go for Nurse Jane 
I shall have to leave you here alone, and the fox 
may come back.” 

“That is so,” said Uncle Wiggily sadly. 

“Ha! I know what I’ll do!” cried Noodle. 
“You shall sit on my broad, flat tail, and I can 
drag it along the ground with you on it, and 
that will give you as good a ride as in a wheel- 
barrow. Then the fox can’t get you.” 

“Fine and dandy!” exclaimed the old gentle- 
man rabbit. 

So he managed to hop over on Noodle’s tail, 
where he sat down, and off the little beaver 
schoolboy started, drawing the old rabbit gentle- 
man. And, though it was hard work, Noodle 
did very well. He took Uncle Wiggily to school, 
because he thought that was the best and safest 
place, and Nurse Jane Fuzzy- Wuzzy, the kind 
muskrat, could come there and get him. 

“Ah, so that it what made you so long getting 
back, is it, Noodle?” asked Professor Rat. “You 
had to save Uncle Wiggily, while going home 
after vour books.” 


Noodle Helps Uncle Wiggily 221 


“Yes,” said Noodle, “I did.” 

“And I am glad you did,” went on the rat 
gentleman. All the animal children were very 
glad to see Uncle Wiggily, whom they all loved, 
and Mr. Rat said the rabbit gentleman could tell 
a fairy story to the pupils while he was waiting 
for Nurse Jane. So Uncle Wiggily did, and 
everybody liked it. 

Then, after Uncle Wiggily went away in his 
automobile with Nurse Jane, Noodle read his 
reading lesson, and soon it was recess time. 

So that’s all to this story, which I hope you 
liked, and next, if the telephone doesn’t talk in 
its sleep, and wake up the player piano down in 
the coal bin, I’ll tell you about the beaver boys 
helping Mrs. Bushytail. 


STORY XXX 


TOODLE, NOODLE AND MllS. BUSHYTAIL 

The next day after Noodle Flat-tail, the little 
heaver boy, forgot his reader book, and had to 
go home after it (when he saved Uncle Wiggily 
from the fox, you know) there were so many of 
the animal boys and girls who forgot their books, 
or their pencils, or something or other that Pro- 
fessor Rat, in the hollow stump school, said with 
a laugh: 

“Oh, ho! I see how it is! You all think I 
will send you home, as I did Noodle, so you may 
have adventures. Not so! I will go get your 
books and things myself. Miss Lady Bug, the 
teacher, will go with me. You can’t fool the 
old professor that way. Oh, no, indeed!” 

So what did Mr. Rat do, but put on his tall 
hat, and take his silver-headed cane, and call to 
Miss Lady Bug, the teacher: 

“Come! you and I will go around to the dif- 
ferent houses of these forgetful animal children, 
and get their books for them. As for them, they 
may stay in school and try to study so they will 
remember better next time.” 

Then combing some cracker dust out of his 

222 


Toodle, Noodle and Mrs. Bushy tail 223 


whiskers with a bathroom sponge. Professor Rat 
started off, and the lady bug teacher went with 
him. 

He had to go to the homes of Billie and 
Johnnie Bushytail, the squirrels, who had for- 
gotten their arithmetics, and to the burrow where 
Sammie Littletail, the rabbit, lived; for Sam- 
mie, hoping he w r ould himself be sent back for 
them, had left his pencils home. And Joie and 
Tommie Kat had forgotten their multiplication 
tables, thinking they would be sent home after 
them, as Noodle Flat-tail was sent to get his 
reading book. 

“I’ll teach those forgetful boys and girls a les- 
son,” said Profesor Rat to Miss Lady Bug as he 
walked along combing the ice cream cones out of 
his whiskers with the lawn mower. 

“But, Professor Rat,” said Miss Lady Bug, 
politely fluttering her wings, “while you and I 
are out of school there can be no lessons. It is 
almost the same as if you let the children go home 
for their things themselves.” 

“Dear me! Dear me!” exclaimed Professor 
Rat, snapping his paws. “I never thought of 
that. So it is, isn’t it? They won’t study while 
we’re away, and they can’t recite. Dear, dear 
me! How careless,” and he was so excited that 
he combed his whiskers out of the strawberry 
shortcake with the looking-glass. 


224 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


“Oh, well. However, be that as it may,” went 
on Professor Rat, hunching up his shoulders 
like an old clothes man when he wants to bu}^ a 
pair of rubber boots, “no matter! Since we have 
started. Miss Lady Bug, we will keep on, and go 
to the homes of the different animal children. 

“It will be a little holiday for us, and, really, 
I am almost as tired of school as the children can 
possibly be. Come along. It is a beautiful day, 
the sun is shining, though winter will soon be here 
again. The leaves are very prettily colored, and 
everything is lovely. Come along and let us be 
happy.” 

So he took Miss Lady Bug’s wing, and away 
they went, side by each, through the woods aftei 
the things the animal children had purposely for- 
gotten and left at home. 

And what was happening back there at the 
hollow stump school? Let us go and see, as they 
say in story books. 

When Professor Rat and Miss Lady Bug 
started off, Toodle Flat-tail, who had forgotten 
to bring his geography book, sort of looked at his 
brother and said: 

“Well, it seems to me that this is just as good 
as if we went home ourselves. We have no one 
to teach us — no lessons to say — come, let us be 
jolly! No one will mind!” 

“That’s what I say!” cried Susie Littletail, 


Toodle, Noodle and Mrs. Bushytail 225 


and then such fun as there was in the hollow 
stump school. And, really, have you the heart 
to blame those little animal children? I have not, 
at least. 

Well, they were playing stump tag, and hide 
the hickory nut, and all games like that, includ- 
ing a new one called “Never put a Snowball on a 
Red Hot Stove,” only, of course there was only 
a make believe stove and a make believe snowball, 
too. They were playing these games, when some 
one knocked on the school door. 

All at once the animal children were as quiet 
as mice. They crept to their seats on tiptoes, and 
no one said anything. The knock came again. 

“That can’t be Professor Rat,” whispered 
Toodle Flat-tail. “He would come right in.” 

Once more the knock. 

“Come — come in,” invited Noodle in a weak 
little voice, not at all like the one with which he 
shouted when he was playing ball. 

The door opened and in came Mrs. Bushytail, 
the mother of Johnnie and Billie, the squirrels. 

“Oh!” exclaimed Mrs. Bushytail, surprised- 
like. “Where is the teacher?” 

“He’s gone, ma,” said Billie, “after our books 
and things. We forgot and he went to get them 
for us.” 

“Is anything the matter, ma?” asked Johnnie, 
anxiously. 


226 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


“Oh, nothing much,” said Mrs. Bushytail. 
“I am cleaning house, that is all, and there is 
so much to do that I thought I would come and 
ask Profesor Rat to let you and Billie come home 
to help me. I want you to dust things with your 
fluffy tails, and I need some one to beat the rugs 
and carpets.” 

“Were — were your rugs and carpets bad — 
that you want them beaten?” asked Crackie Flat- 
tail, sister of Toodle and Noodle, in a squeaky 
little voice that made all the others laugh. 

“Oh, no, they were not bad,” said Mrs. Bushy- 
tail, “only we have to beat them to get the dust 
out. But as long as Profesor Rat is not here, 
there is no school, so you may come home with 
me, Billie and Johnnie, I will explain to the 
teacher when I see him.” 

So Billie and Johnnie went home with their 
mamma to help her clean house. Then, as long 
as there was no one to hear their lessons, the 
other animal pupils thought they might as well 
go home also. So they went, and Toodle wrote 
all about it on the blackboard, so Professor Rat 
could read about it when he and Miss Lady Bug 
came back to the hollow stump. 

“Well, there’s no school; what shall we do?” 
asked Toodle of Noodle. 

“Let’s go around and watch Billie and John- 
nie help their mamma clean house,” said Noodle 


Toodle, Noodle and Mrs. Bushy tail 227 


to Toodle. So they went, taking Crackie with 
them. 

Wasn’t it odd to have the teacher go away 
from the school so the children had to go home? 
Do you wish that would happen ? 

Of course, you do not. 

Well, Noodle and Toodle, with their sister 
Crackie, soon came to where the squirrel family 
lived. And, oh! how busy Mrs. Bushytail and 
her two boys were; to say nothing of little Jennie 
Chipmunk, who lived with them. They simply 
made the dust fly. 

“Now,” said Mrs. Bushytail, coming out with 
a big grass rug, “this is very dusty. Beat it well, 
boys. Get all the dirt out of it.” 

Johnnie and Billie tried, but they were not 
very strong, and the sticks they used were not 
very heavy, so they did not get much dust out of 
the rug. 

“I’ll tell you what it is,” said Toodle, “you 
had better let Noodle and me beat that rug, with 
our big, broad, flat tails, Mrs. Bushytail.” 

“Oh, if vou would be so kind!” exclaimed the 
squirrel lady. “You could do it quite nicely, I 
believe. There, Billie and Johnnie, put the rug 
on the grass. Toodle and Noodle will beat it for 
us.” 

And I wish you could have seen those beaver 
boys beat that rug! No, on second thought, I 


228 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


am glad you were not there, for the dust was very 
thick. It made everybody sneeze, and if you have 
the epizootic, as a little girl I know up in Mont- 
clair has, the dust would set you to coughing like 
anything. Every once in a while Toodle and 
Noodle had to stop and go: 

“Aker-choo! Aker-choo! A-ker-choo-o-o-o !” 

Well, everything was going along nicely, and 
the housecleaning was almost over, when, all of a 
sudden, along came a hungry bear. He wanted 
something to eat — a beaver or a squirrel — he 
didn’t much care which. And he was just going 
to grab up little Crackie Flat-tail, when, all at 
once, Toodle and Noodle saw him. 

“Quick!” cried Noodle. “Beat the rug with 
all your might, Toodle !” And they did, and their 
tails made such a loud noise the bear thought it 
was a gun being fired at him, and he thought the 
dust was powder smoke, and away he ran as fast 
as his legs would carry him. So that’s how Too- 
dle and Noodle helped Mrs. Bushytail, and also 
saved their sister Crackie. 

And then along came Professor Rat and Miss 
Lady Bug, to get Billie Bushy tail’s forgotten 
books and when the school teacher heard how all 
the children had left the school he laughed like 
anything, and said they did just right. 

“But it must not happen again,” he said, and 
it did not. 


Toodle, Noodle and Mrs. Bushytail 229 


So now I’ve got to stop, but next, in case the 
teakettle doesn’t bite the nutmeg grater and stick 
the rolling pin in the pie, while they try to tag the 
sugar bowl. I’ll tell you about Toodle and the 
singing bird. 


STORY XXXI 


TOODLE AND THE SINGING BIRD 

“Children,” said Mrs. Flat-tail, the beaver 
lady, to Toodle, Noodle and their little sister, 
Crackie, one morning as they were starting for 
school, “I think you had better take your lunch, 
and not come home to dinner this noon; I am 
going to be very busy, canning sweet-flag root, 
and birch bark, so we will have something to eat 
this winter. I really wouldn’t have time to get 
you anything to eat.” 

“Oh, it will be much more fun to take our 
lunch!” cried Crackie, as she accidentally 
dropped her pencil and cracked the point. That 
was why she was called Crackie — she so often 
dropped things. Once she dropped an egg — but 
there, I’ll tell you about that later. 

“Yes, I thing it’ll be real jolly to take our 
lunch,” spoke Toodle, as he strapped his school 
books together so he could carry them in one paw. 

“And we can go out in the woods, back of 
the hollow^ stump school, to eat it,” added Noodle, 
who was busy finishing the last of the red-apple 
pancakes his mother had made for breakfast. 

Then the school bell rang: “Ding-dong!” 

230 


Toodle and the Singing Bird 


231 


and also “Dong-ding!” and Grandpa Whackum, 
the oldest beaver gentleman in the pond, called 
out from where he was reading the morning 
paper near the fireplace : 

“Come, children, hurry off, or you’ll be late!” 

So Mrs. Flat-tail, the beaver lady, put up a 
nice lunch for each of her children, wrapping 
birch bark sandwiches and hickory nut cake in 
clean leaves for them to take to school. Off they 
started, as three happy little beavers as you would 
meet if you walked a mile, or maybe a mile and 
a half, for all I know. 

On the way they met Peetie and Jackie Bow 
Wow, the puppy dog boys. 

“We’re not going home to dinner today,” said 
Toodle to Peetie. 

* 

“Why not? Isn’t there anything to eat at 
your house?” asked Peetie. 

“If there isn’t,” went on Jackie, very kindly, 
“you may come to our house. We have lots of 
things, and I’ll give you a piece of my puppy- 
cake.” 

“Oh, that’s not the reason,” spoke Noodle 
quickly. “Thank you just the same. Our mam- 
ma is going to be so busy that she gave us our 
lunch to take to school.” 

Then Noodle and Toodle and Crackie showed 
their little bundles of lunch and Peetie and 
Jackie said: 


232 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


“Oh, dear! We wish we could bring our 
lunch. We’ll do it tomorrow!” 

“Then we’ll all have a regular picnic!” ex- 
claimed Crackie. 

So on the beaver children went to the hollow- 
stump school, and along the way they met more 
of their friends, all of whom thought it was just 
the finest idea in the world to carry a lunch, 
and they all said — from Sammie and Susie Little^ 
tail, the rabbits, down to Jollie and Jillie Long- 
tail, the mousie boy and girl — they all said that, 
the next day, they were going to do as Toodle 
and Noodle and Crackie had done, and bring 
something to eat for the noon recess. 

“Ding-dong!” went the last bell, and all the 
animal children scampered into the hollow stump 
and took their seats, while Miss Lady Bug, the 
teacher played on the tin-pan piano so they could 
sing the morning song. 

Then Professor Rat heard the lessons, and 
some of the pupils went up head, and some went 
down foot, for there was not room at the head of 
the class for all of them, you see. 

Well, when noon time came all the animal 
children, except Toodle and Noodle and Crackie 
hurried home to get their dinners. But the little 
beavers took their packages of lunch and went 
out in a small grove of trees back of the hollow 
stump school. There, sitting on their broad, flat 


Toodle and the Singing Bird 


238 


tails, which were like stools to them, with the 
brown leaves rustling all around, and a sweet, 
spicy smell coming up from the earth, they ate 
the lunches their mamma had put up for them. 

And oh! How good everything tasted! 
Really twice as good as if they had gone home 
and had sat down to the table to eat. 

Pretty soon Noodle said: “I’m going off in 
the woods a little way and see if I can find any 
chestnut trees. If I can, I’ll tell Johnnie and 
Billie Bushytail, the squirrels, and after school 
they can climb up and get the nuts. Come on, 
Toodle.” 

“Oh, I don’t want to,” spoke the other little 
beaver boy. “I haven’t quite finished my lunch 
yet.” 

“I’ll go with you,” said Crackie to Noodle. 
“I’ve finished eating and I’d like to look for chest- 
nut trees.” 

“All right, come on, little sister,” said Noodle, 
and taking Crackie’s paw in his, so she wouldn’t 
fall and break her nose, off they started. Mind, 
I’m not saying for sure that Crackie would have 
fallen and broken her nose, but it might have 
happened, mightn’t it? 

That left Toodle all alone eating his lunch 
there in the grove of trees. He was taking his 
time about it, and thinking that pretty soon he 
would be through, and could go off and meet his 


234 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


sister and brother, when, all at once, he heard a 
bird singing in the tree over his head. 

And it was such a sad song which the bird 
sang that Toodle felt the tears coming into his 
eyes, though he did not quite know why. The 
bird sang about how summer had gone, and all 
the pretty leaves were falling off the trees, and 
how soon it would be cold and icy, and nearly 
everyone would freeze. Brr-r-r-r! 

“And I shall have to fly far, far away from 
here,” sang the bird, most sadly. 

“Oh, dear me !” cried Toodle. “I wonder why 
I feel so badly?” 

Then the bird, looking down, and seeing how 
sad Toode was, chirped once or twice and said : 

“Oh, excuse me, Toodle, I did not mean to 
make you feel so badly. Wait, I will sing a dif- 
ferent kind of song.” 

Then the bird sang about how nice it is in 
winter, with no mosquitoes to bite you, and how 
lovely the snow looks as it sifts down, and what 
jolly fun it is to go sleigh riding and skating, and 
how much fun it is to make snow men, and then 
how, in the middle of the night, Santa Claus 
comes riding over the housetops with his reindeer 
and their jingling bells — and all that, until Too- 
dle cried out: 

“Oh, winter is the jolliest time of all! I’m 
glad winter is coming. And anyhow, Singing 


Toodle and the Singing Bird 


235 


Bird, you can come back here in the spring!” 

“Yes, I suppose I can,” said the bird. And 
then she suddenly cried out: “Oh, dear! I 
dropped it!” 

“Dropped what?” asked Toodle, as he heard 
something fall. 

“My pocketbook,” answered the singing bird. 
“It had all my money in it, and my airship ticket 
to go down South. I had it in my claw, but I 
dropped it and it fell into that pond of water, 
and now I can’t go away and I’ll freeze to death. 
Oh, dear! My lost pocketbook!” 

“Ha ! So your pocketbook fell into the water, 
did it?” asked Toodle, looking at a little pond 
that was near where he had eaten his lunch. 
“Well, don’t worry,” he went on to the bird. “I 
am a good swimmer, and I just love to go into the 
water. I’ll get your pocketbook back for you!” 

With that into the pond he dived, and, reach- 
ing down under water with his front paws, 
Toodle brought up the singing bird’s pocket- 
book. ? 

Then Toodle swam with it out on dry land, 
and the money was all safe and so was the airship 
ticket to go down South, and the bird was so 
thankful that she sang another song for Toodle. 

And, just as it was about finished, what 
should happen but that out of the woods came a 
bad old wolf, sneaking along to get Toodle, who 


236 


Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail 


was so interested in the bird’s song that he never 
noticed the bad creature. 

Nearer and nearer came the wolf, and then 
the bird saw him, and she knew he was after Too- 
dle, and the bird cried out : 

“Come, friends! Come, all you birds! Help 
save Toodle from the wolf!” 

Then about a thousand birds that were going 
South to spend the winter where it was warm and 
sunny, came flying along, and they fluttered all 
about that wolf, and they pricked him and nipped 
him all over, from the tip of his nose to the tip 
of his tail, so that the wolf was glad enough to 
run back to his den and let Toodle alone. 

Then the beaver boy thanked the birds very 
kindly, and they sang him a little good-by song, 
and away they flew to be gone until spring. Then 
Noodle and Crackie came back, having found a 
chestnut tree, and the noon recess was over, and 
all the animal children had to go back in school. 

But they had lots of fun there, for Professor 
Water Rat told them some jolly stories, and Miss 
Lady Bug, the teacher, sang a little song, so that 
Toodle and Noodle Flat-tail, the beavers, were 
quite happy. 

And so we will say good-by to them while 
they are having such a good time. For we have 
come to the end of this book. There is no more 
room in it for any more stories. 


Toodle and the Singing Bird 


237 


But I am going to make another book next 
year, and in that I am going to put some stories 
of little sheep, who had the most jolly times you 
can think of in the green meadow by the spark- 
ling brook. 

The new book will be called : “Bedtime Sto- 
ries, Dottie and Willie Lambkin,” and I hope 
you will like it. So, until I can get that book 
ready, I will say just what you said to Toodle 
and Noodle Flat-tail — and that is — “Good-bye!” 

The End 


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